Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingtable.Inyourwriting,youshould1)describethetable,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

Cycling in London is less pleasant than in many European cities. Main roads teem with lorries; winding back streets are hard to navigate. The number of bicycle journeys has nonetheless doubled since 2000. Nationally, just 2% pedal to work. In Hackney, in London's East End, fully 9% do. But only 2% of women cycle to work in London, compared with 5% of men. Blacks and other ethnic minorities are reluctant to do it, too. Boris Johnson, London's mayor, oversaw the introduction of a bike-hiring scheme, which was started by his predecessor but quickly became known as the "Boris bike". He pushed for bright blue cycle paths on some busy roads. But the new cycle highways are far more ambitious and permanent. One will run east-west through the City and the West End. Another will run two miles from Elephant and Castle in the south to Farringdon in north London. Four existing routes will also be improved, while around 30 of the city's busiest junctions will be made a bit less dangerous. The new superhighways ought to be much safer than London's existing cycle lanes. A raised pavement will keep cyclists away from cars and lorries. Junctions will be redesigned and some parking bays—including a few for the disabled—will be removed. Cars will be prevented from turning down certain streets. Similar schemes exist elsewhere: since 2007 around 30 miles of protected cycle lanes have been created in New York. In Amsterdam, where lanes have existed for decades, old people and women are far more inclined to cycle. Greens have long lobbied for cycle paths on the grounds that moving people out of cars cuts air pollution. A series of highly publicised accidents, including one involving a newspaper journalist, and several deaths in the city have also put pressure on the mayor to make London safer. And the social transformation of the capital has encouraged officials to smile on cyclists. The population of inner London is rebounding as affluent folk move in. The new inhabitants want cleaner streets and fewer cars, which are viewed as suburban. Cycling was once a means of transport for the poor. But it has become an important marker of an affluent world city, argues Isabel Dedring, the deputy mayor for transport. "There's more pressure on cities to be nice places to live," she says.

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

Write an email of about 100 words to a newspaper editor to advocate people to be responsible for their words on the Internet. You should include the details you think necessary. You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.(10 points)

A new economics paper has some old-fashioned advice for people navigating the stresses of life: Find a spouse who is also your best friend. Social scientists have long known that 【C1】______ people tend to be happier, but they debate whether that is because marriage causes happiness or simply because happier people are more【C2】______ to get married. The new paper, 【C3】______ by the National Bureau of Economic Research, controlled for pre-marriage happiness levels. It【C4】______that being married makes people happier and more satisfied 【C5】______ their lives than those who remain single—particularly during the most stressful periods, like 【C6】______ crises. Even as fewer people are marrying, the disadvantages of remaining single have broad【C7】______. It's important【C8】______marriage is increasingly a force behind inequality.【C9】______marriages are more common among educated, high-income people, and increasingly out of reach for those who are not. That divide appears to【C10】______not just people' s income and family stability, but also their happiness and stress levels. A quarter of today's young adults will have never married by 2030, which would be the highest【C11】______in modern history, according to Pew Research Center.【C12】______both remaining unmarried and divorcing are more common among less-educated, lower-income people.【C13】______, high-income people still marry at high rates and are less likely to divorce. Those whose lives are most difficult could【C14】______most from marriage, according to the economists who wrote the new paper, John Helliwell and Shawn Grover. "Marriage may be most important when there is that stress in life and when things are going【C15】______," Mr. Grover said. 【C16】______ marital happiness long outlasted the honeymoon period.【C17】______some social scientists have argued that happiness levels are innate, so people return to their natural level of well-being【C18】______joyful or upsetting events, the researchers found that the benefits of marriage persist. One【C19】______for that might be the role of friendship within marriage. Those who【C20】______their spouse or partner to be their best friend get about twice as much life satisfaction from marriage as others, the study found.

Judging from recent surveys, most experts in sleep behavior agree that there is virtually an epidemic of sleepiness in the nation. "I can"t think of a single study that hasn"t found Americans getting【C1】______sleep than they ought to." says Dr. David. 【C2】______people who think they are sleeping enough would probably be【C3】______with more rest. The beginning of our sleep deficit crisis can be【C4】______to the invention of the light bulb a century ago. From diary entries and other personal【C5】______from the 18th and 19th centuries, sleep scientists have reached the【C6】______that the average person used to sleep about 9.5 hours a night. "The best sleep habits once were【C7】______on us, when we had nothing to do in the evening down on the farm, and it was dark." By the 1950s and 1960s, that sleep schedule had been reduced【C8】______, to between 7.5 and 8 hours, and most people had to wake to an alarm clock. "People cheat on their sleep, and they don"t even【C9】______they"re doing it," says Dr. David. "They think they"re okay because they can【C10】______on 6.5 hours, when they really need 7.5, 8 or even more to feel ideally【C11】______." Perhaps the most merciless robber of sleep, researchers say, is the【C12】______of the day. Whenever pressures from work, family, friends and community【C13】______, many people consider sleep the least【C14】______item on the agenda. "In our society, you"re considered【C15】______if you say you only need 5.5 hours" sleep. If you say you"ve got to get 8.5 hours, people think you lack【C16】______and ambition." To assess the【C17】______of sleep deficit, researchers have put subjects【C18】______a set of psychological and performance tests requiring them, for instance, to add columns of numbers or recall a passage read to them only minutes earlier. "We"ve found that if you"re sleep-deprived, performance【C19】______," says Dr. David. "Short-term memory is impaired,【C20】______are abilities to make decisions and to concentrate."

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthechart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)describethechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

Driving through snowstorm on icy roads for long distances is a most nerve-racking experience. It is a paradox that the snow, coming【C1】______ gently, blowing gleefully in a high wind, all the while【C2】______ down a treacherous carpet, freezes the windows,【C3】______ the view. The might of automated man is【C4】______ . The horses, the powerful electrical systems, the deep-tread tires, all go【C5】______ nothing. One minute the road feels【C6】______ , and the next the driver is sliding over it, light as a【C7】______ , in a panic, wondering what the heavy trailer trucks coming up【C8】______ the rear are going to do. The trucks are like【C9】______ when you have to pass them, not at sixty or seventy【C10】______ you do when the road is dry, but at twenty-five and thirty. 【C11】______ their engines sound unnaturally loud. Snow, slush and【C12】______ of ice spray from beneath the wheels, obscure the windshield, and rattle【C13】______ your car. Beneath the wheels there is plenty of 【C14】______ for you to slide and get mashed to a pulp. Inch【C15】______ inch you move up, past the rear wheels, the center wheels, the cab, the front wheels, all【C16】______ too slowly by. Straight ahead you continue, 【C17】______ to cut over sharply would send you into a slip,【C18】______ in front of the vehicle. At last, there is 【C19】______ enough, and you creep back over, in front of the truck now, but【C20】______ the sound of its engine still thundering in your ears.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingchart.Inyouressay,youshould1)interpretthechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteatleast150words.WriteyouressayontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

BPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D./B

Directions:Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingchart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)describethechart,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150words.

Next to snakes and crocs, Australians imagine sharks to be the country"s most dangerous creature. Tim Winton, an author, calls sharks "substitute for the Devil". Seven swimmers in three years have died from shark attacks in Mr Winton"s home state of Western Australia. The state"s government, led by Colin Barnett, is now taking revenge. In late November a skilled surfer died from a shark attack. A week later a shark killed a 19-year-old in New South Wales. The tragedies fed public anxieties. Mr Barnett ordered no-go zones for sharks to be set up offshore, marked by lines of baited hooks. Any shark caught on them more than three metres long was to be shot. The first shark caught in this strategy was shot on January 26th. Mr Barnett says he has to "protect the people of Western Australia". But previously hostile popular attitudes towards sharks are shifting. Plenty of Western Australians, along with environmentalists and shark experts, deplore the new policy. In early January, at the height of the summer holiday season, more than 4,000 protesters swamped Cottesloe Beach in Perth, with signs reading "Save Our Sharks"and "Science Not Slaughter". Of Australia"s 180 or so shark species, only a few are dangerous to humans: chiefly, bull sharks, tiger sharks and great whites, which are protected under federal law. Their numbers have suffered from the trade in shark fins for soup in Asia, which Australia and others have banned. Nonetheless, the federal government has given its conservative counterpart in Western Australia an exemption from protecting great whites under its "catch-and-kill" policy. Despite the recent attacks, deaths from sharks are rare—an average of just one person a year for the past half-century around Australia"s vast coastline, says the Australian Shark Attack File, a research outfit at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. By contrast, an average of 120 people drown each year off beaches and in harbours and rivers. There has been no fatal shark attack at Bondi beach in Sydney, Australia"s most popular strand, since 1929.

When education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fail apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, promoting state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity. Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers. Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers and is therefore more likely to aggravate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short. The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills. Manufacturing increasingly calls for brain work rather than physical work. The share of the American workforce employed in routine office jobs declined from 25. 5% to 21% between 1996 and 2015. The single, stable career has gone the way of the Rolodex. Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope. Just 16% of Americans think that a four-year college degree prepares students very well for a good job. Although a vocational education promises that vital first hire, those with specialized training tend to withdraw from the labour force earlier than those with general education—perhaps because they are less adaptable. At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.

Now that we are fairly sure that there are many Earth-like planets in the Galaxy, the time is ripe (or almost so) to wonder whether these new worlds do indeed have a high probability of hosting new forms of life. Currently, the best【C1】______on the existence of other planets comes from NASA's【C2】______Kepler satellite, which has been mapping an area of the sky【C3】______some 150,000 stars. Scientists estimate that around 5 percent of planets in our galaxy have masses similar【C4】______Earth's and, possibly, are within the habitable zone of their stars, meaning that【C5】______they hold water it has a high chance of being liquid.【C6】______there are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone, scientists estimate that there should be about 10 billion Earth-size planets. Not bad, especially if we【C7】______that to be Earth-size and within a habitable zone is all it takes for life to take hold in an【C8】______world. In practice, however, the situation is much more【C9】______, since it depends on what life is and how it appears in a planet,【C10】______on the planet's detailed geological history. Here on Earth life appeared some 3.5 billion years ago.【C11】______that it may have been here as far【C12】______as 3.8 billion years ago remain tentative. For about the first three billion years, life on earth was【C13】______in the form of single-cell creatures. Only when Earth's atmosphere was full of oxygen did more sophisticated organisms appear. 【C14】______its unusual atmosphere, Earth's heavy, single moon, its magnetic field also did something else that allowed complex life to【C15】______on its surface.【C16】______these, Complex life would find it very hard to【C17】______and survive. The results from Kepler's mission are encouraging and exciting. We have the【C18】______of confirming the existence of countless other worlds out there. Based on these findings, we should indeed【C19】______that other worlds would host some kind of simple life. However, as some scientists argued, Earth and its ability to host complex life will probably remain a【C20】______phenomenon in this and other galaxies.

Writeanessaybasedonthefollowingtable.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthetable,and2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteabout150wordsontheANSWERSHEET.(15points)

BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

Suppose you are going to resign from your company for personal reasons. Write a letter of resignation to your manager to 1) inform him about your decision, and 2) express your best wishes. You should write about 100 words. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write your address.

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Forum was established in 2011, with the intention to support and encourage cooperation between the BRICS nations in commercial, political and cultural dimensions. The five member states of BRICS are nations with unique culture, different economic sizes, and social and economic developments. However, one thing the BRICS nations have in common is that each plays significant roles in their regional affairs. Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized, multiple times in his keynote speech to the BRICS heads, as well as to the business and industrial leaders from the participation nations, that the BRICS highly value mutual respect, openness and tolerance, as well as mutual benefit, which, President Xi said he believes, is the cornerstone to the success of the cooperation among the BRICS nations in the past decade and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future cooperation among the BRICS nations, and cooperation between BRICS and other emerging market economies and developing economies.

BSection III Writing/B