Write a job offer rejection letter of about 100 words, stating exactly why you reject the offer. You should include the details you think necessary.You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead.Do not write the address.

Twenty-seven years ago, Egypt revised its secular constitution to enshrine Muslim sharia as "the principal source of legislation". To most citizens, most of the time, that seeming contradiction—between secularism and religion—has not made much difference. Nine in ten Egyptians are Sunni Muslims and expect Islam to govern such things as marriage, divorce and inheritance. Nearly all the rest profess Christianity or Judaism, faiths recognised and protected in Islam.【F1】 But to the small minority who embrace other faiths, or who have tried to leave Islam, it has, until lately, made an increasingly troubling difference. Members of Egypt's 2, 000-strong Bahai community, for instance, have found they cannot state their religion on the national identity cards that all Egyptians are obliged to produce to secure such things as driver's licenses, bank accounts, social insurance and state schooling. Hundreds of Coptic Christians who have converted to Islam, often to escape the Orthodox sect's ban on divorce, find they cannot revert to their original faith.【F2】 In some cases, children raised as Christians have discovered that, because a divorced parent converted to Islam, they too have become officially Muslim, and cannot claim otherwise. 【F3】 Such restrictions on religious freedom are not directly a product of sharia, say human-rights campaigners, but rather of rigid interpretations of Islamic law by over-zealous officials. In their strict view, Bahai belief cannot be recognised as a legitimate faith, since it arose in the 19th century, long after Islam staked its claim to be the final revelation in a chain of prophecies beginning with Adam. Likewise, they brand any attempt to leave Islam, whatever the circumstances, as a form of apostasy, punishable by death. But such views have lately been challenged. Last year Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti, who is the government's highest religious adviser, declared that nowhere in Islam's sacred texts did it say that apostasy need be punished in the present rather than by God in the afterlife. In the past month, Egyptian courts have issued two rulings that, while restricted in scope, should ease some bothersome strictures. Bahais may now leave the space for religion on their identity cards blank.【F4】 Twelve former Christians won a lawsuit and may now return to their original faith, on condition that their identity documents note their previous adherence to Islam. 【F5】 Small steps, perhaps, but they point the way towards freedom of choice and citizenship based on equal rights rather than membership of a privileged religion.

Gandhi"s pacifism can be separated to some extent from his other teachings.【F1】 Its motive was religious, but he claimed also for it that it was a definitive technique, a method, capable of producing desired political results. 【F2】 Gandhi"s attitude was not that of most Western pacifists. Satyagraha, the method Gandhi proposed and practiced, first evolved in South Africa, was a sort of non-violent warfare, a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred. It entailed such things as civil disobedience, strikes, lying down in front of railway trains, enduring police charges without running away and without hitting back, and the like. Gandhi objected to "passive resistance" as a translation of Satyagraha: in Gujarati, it seems, the word means "firmness in the truth". 【F3】 In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-1918, even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides. 【F4】 Since his whole political life centred round a struggle for national independence, he could not and, indeed, he did not take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins. Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: "What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?"【F5】 I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the "you"re another" type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer" s Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi" s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which "would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler"s violence."

The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the New World are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was "So much importance attached to intellectual pursuits. " According to many books and articles, New England"s leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life. To take this approach to the New Englanders normally mean to start with the Puritans" theological innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church—important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New world circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity. The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts churches in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston. These men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New England an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness. We should not forget, however, that most New Englanders were less well educated. While few craftsmen or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed, it is obvious that their views were less fully intellectualized. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitious quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations, and religious hope—all came together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: "come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people." One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in puritan churches. Meanwhile, many settles had slighter religious commitments than Dane" s, as one clergyman learned in confronting folk along the coast who mocked that they had not come to the New world for religion. "Our main end was to catch fish. "

long thin leg

While still catching-up to men in some spheres of modern life, women appear to be way ahead in at least one undesirable category. "Women are particularly susceptible to developing depression and anxiety disorders in response to stress compared to men," according to Dr. Yehuda, chief psychiatrist at New York"s Veteran" s Administration Hospital. Studies of both animals and humans have shown that sex hormones somehow affect the stress response, causing females under stress to produce more of the trigger chemicals than do males under the same conditions. In several of the studies, when stressed-out female rats had their ovaries(the female reproductive organs)removed, their chemical responses became equal to those of the males. Adding to a woman" s increased dose of stress chemicals, are her increased "opportunities" for stress. "It" s not necessarily that women don" t cope as well. It" s just that they have so much more to cope with," says Dr. Yehuda "Their capacity for tolerating stress may even be greater than men" s," she observes, "it"s just that they"re dealing with so many more things that they become worn out from it more visibly and sooner." Dr. Yehuda notes another difference between the sexes. "I think that the kinds of things that women are exposed to tend to be in more of a chronic or repeated nature. Men go to war and are exposed to combat stress. Men are exposed to more acts of random physical violence. The kinds of interpersonal violence that women are exposed to tend to be in domestic situations, by, unfortunately, parents or other family members, and they tend not to be one-shot deals. The wear-and-tear that comes from these longer relationships can be quite devastating." Adeline Alvarez married at 18 and gave birth to a son, but was determined to finish college. "I struggled a lot to get the college degree. I was living in so much frustration that that was my escape, to go to school, and get ahead and do better." Later, her marriage ended and she became a single mother. "It" s the hardest thing to take care of a teenager, have a job, pay the rent, pay the car payment, and pay the debt. I lived from paycheck to paycheck ." Not everyone experiences the kinds of severe chronic stresses Alvarez describes. But most women today are coping with a lot of obligations, with few breaks, and feeling the strain. Alvarez" s experience demonstrates the importance of finding ways to diffuse stress before it threatens your health and your ability to function.

Asking for More Time to Finish a Task Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You failed to finish an important task assigned by Professor Liu because of a severe illness. Write him a letter to express your apology, explain your reason, and ask for more time to finish the task. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

For man and women under 30, smoking does not prevent typical age-related weight gain, according to a study of nearly 4,000 white and black young adults ages 18 to 30.【F1】 The tobacco industry has named cigarettes "thins" and "slims" in an attempt to appeal to weight-conscious young women who think that smoking will help them control their weight, but this study indicates that smoking has a negligible effect on body weight. The researchers classified participants into six groups based on self-reported smoking status. Participants" self-reported smoking status and body weight were reassessed at two-, five-, and seven-year follow-ups. The researchers found minimal evidence of any weight control benefit from smoking. Those who smoked, or who began smoking, did not lose weight. 【F2】 While smoking was associated with an attenuation of weight gain among black adults, no such effect occurred among white men or women, the latter being the group most likely to smoke "to control body weight". 【F3】 The finding of little immediate or even long-term(seven years)weight-control benefit from smoking among young adults goes against the beliefs of both smokers and nonsmokers that smoking helps to control or to limit weight gain. Any weight control benefit derived from smoking is likely to take many years, according to the researchers. The researchers also found that individuals who quit smoking experienced greater weight gain than individuals who continued smoking or never smoked at all. While smoking is not a successful mechanism for weight control, smoking cessation does have serious long-term consequences for body weight. "These findings have important public health implications, since the perception that smoking controls body weight is widespread, particularly among youth," said Dr. Klesges, lead author of the study.【F4】 "Every day, many young Americans begin smoking believing that it will help them lose weight," but these results demonstrate that smoking does not help control weight, and only after decades of smoking do we see a difference in body weights of smokers and non-smokers. "If young people throughout the nation can learn that smoking has no effect on body weight, it is likely that a significant reduction among smoking in youth would be observed. " 【F5】 The authors suggest that future research should look at the effects of smoking on body weight among younger participants, since the pre-teen and teenage years are when individuals typically start smoking. While this research focused on smoking and weight gain among whites and blacks, future studies should also gauge whether these findings apply to other ethnic groups.

TheImportanceofIntegrityWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

You are a senior of computer science. You"d like to be an intern for an IT company. Write a letter to present your willing including: 1) your education background; 2) your purpose of being an intern. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the letter. You do not need to write the address.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1.describethedrawingbriefly,2.interpretitsintendedmeaning,andthen3.giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneadyontheANSWERSHEET.

Write a letter to a museum's staff to ask for some information about a historical exhibition. You should include the details you think necessary. You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

Television, the most pervasive and persuasive modern technologies, marked by rapid change and growth, is moving into a new era, an era of extraordinary sophistication and versatility, which promises to reshape our lives and our world.

Henri Matisse originally trained as a lawyer, turning to art whilst recovering from appendicitis. (46) Initially seduced by the Impressionists and, in particular. by Cezanne, Matisse brought together a circle of like—minded artists who became known as the Fauves(the Beasts)after their sensational exhibition of 1905. These early paintings revealed an intuitive and explosive colour sense which was to become the defining feature of Matisse"s long career. (47) Believing art to be "something like a good armchair in which one rests from physical fatigue", he was dedicated to producing work that expressed a harmony close to a musical composition. (48) There are two versions of La Danse, originally produced with another enormous panel entitled Musique for a Russian collector. Dance was a popular topic at the time as Diaghilev and the Russian Ballet had just visited Paris. (49) Despite, or because of, the simplification of colour, form, and line, the figures appear to be full of life. Matisse made sculptures, designed sets and costumes and illustrated books. (50) He was also an important graphic artist who, in his bed—ridden final years, evolved his own method of arranging cut—out paper shapes. He is indisputably the greatest decorative artist of the twentieth century.

Is Google creating the next generation of office blowhards? A clever psychological study by Yale University researchers【B1】______ the answer is yes. It seems that as we look things up on the Web, we become convinced that the information【B2】______ in our brains. It doesn't. But we behave as if it does, and we're not shy about 【B3】______ that it' s there. "This huge database is leading people to believe this information is in their heads,【B4】______in fact it's not," Matthew Fisher, the Yale graduate psychology student who【B5】______ the study, said. Is that a bad thing? 【B6】______an annoyance? Or no harm at all? It depends on whom you ask. Fisher's paper, published online Tuesday in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, 【B7】______that by " wrongly situating【B8】______knowledge within their own heads, people may unwittingly exaggerate how much【B9】______ work they can do in situations【B10】______they are truly on their own." But Clive Thompson, author of the book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better, wasn't so sure. "I'm not quite as【B11】______about it as they seem to be at the end of the article," he said after reading the study. "The【B12】______is that we' re not that often truly on our own." And only a few of those【B13】______when we truly are on our own may be dangerous. 【B14】______you might not want your brain surgeon overconfident about how much knowledge she has 【B15】______in her head, does it really【B16】______whether your auto mechanic can change your fan belt from memory or with an assist from a quick laptop【B17】______? "I don't think we can conclude this is some terrible strategy," Fisher acknowledged. But, he warned, "if you're【B18】______of the gaps in your understanding【B19】______it's being filled in by this information you think you know, you' d be less inclined to【B20】______out and fill in those gaps."

Big macs. Nacho-Cheese Chalupas. Subway subs. Rob Borucki adores them all. The 37-year old indulges in fast-food fare at least five times a week. A really good day for Borucki? When Wienerschnitzel, a West Coast hot-dog chain he grew up with, recently opened just a few blocks from his Tempe Arizona office and he got to enjoy with his fellow sausage enthusiasts. "I was so excited" says the Internet project manager, who runs a fast-food fan Web site. "And so was everyone there." In fast-food terms, Borucki is called a "heavy user," even though he is quite slender. Loosely defined as the 20 percent of fast-food eaters who account for 60 percent of all fast-food sales, a typical heavy user is male, in his 20s or 30s and extremely loyal to the burgers and fries he loves, lately, heavies are feeling under siege as fast-food chains have come under attack. Obese diners are suing companies like McDonald"s for allegedly contributing to their weight problems, And the endless flood of studies detailing the horrors of obesity provide plenty of ammo for the chatter, types who want heavy users to change their ways. Heavy users like Borucki insist they don"t need saving, protesting that they are far from the use less fatties anti-fast-food activists make them out to be. For his part, Borucki is a moderate exerciser. And he"ll occasionally substitute a side salad for his regular fries. Indeed, in a recent study of restaurant-goers by the research firm Technomic, 90 percent said they had concerns about obesity, and 50 percent said they"d changed their eating habits in the past year as a result. Fast-food companies have noticed. You can give your waistline a break today with a McDonald"s fruit-and-walnut salad or skip the flame-broiled meat and have a Burger King Fire-Grilled salad with shrimp instead. The healthy approach is working: sales are expected to increase by as much as 4 percent this year. Heavy users are adapting—in their own way. They"re eating Chicken Whoppers as well as the real thing and cutting back on anything that has the word "fried" in its name. McDonald"s dropped its Super Size portions, apparently because customers stopped ordering the gigantic servings. "But the Ouarter Pounder with Cheese or the Big Mac—those items will not be touched," says Technomic"s Dennis Lombardi. Jeremy Hageman can take some comfort in that. The 26-year-old Web designer hits the gym three times a week so that he can indulge in as much fast food as he likes. "I like things that taste good," Hageman says. He came up with a plan: eat more Taco Bell. "For some reason," he says, "it doesn"t seem as bad."

One pertinent question in the wake of the earthquake near Aceh and the tsunami it generated is how much notice of an approaching wave can be given to vulnerable people without the risk of crying "wolf" too often. Earthquakes themselves are unpredictable, and likely to remain so. But detecting them when they happen is a routine technology. That was not the problem in this case, which was observed by monitoring stations all over the world. Unfortunately for the forecasters, although any powerful submarine earthquake brings the risk of a dangerous tsunami, not all such earth quakes actually result in a big wave, and false alarms cost money and breed cynicism. On top of that, most "tsunamigenic" earthquakes, which are caused when the processes of plate tectonics force heavy, oceanic crustal rock below lighter, continental rock to create a deep trench at the bottom of the sea, occur in the Pacific, which is almost surrounded by such trenches. In the India Ocean, deep trenches are confined to the southern coast of Indonesia, and tsunamis are rare. Since most of the countries affected by this tsunami are poor, or middle-income at best, and monitoring costs money, this might suggest that a fatalistic approach to the question is reasonable. But American and Japanese experience suggests that effective monitoring need not be that expensive. These two countries have networks of seabed pressure-detectors that can monitor tsunamis and indicate whether and where evacuation is necessary—data they share with their Pacific neighbors. A system of seven detectors, run from Hawaii, cost about $18m to develop, and the experience gained doing so means a similar system might now be had for as little as $2m. So, to the sound of stable doors being bolted firmly shut, politicians in South-East Asia and Australia are proposing one for the Indian Ocean. Detecting tsunamis directly, rather than relying on earthquake monitors, is important for another reason, too. Not all tsunamis are caused by earthquakes. Some of the worst, such as a 15-metrehigh monster that killed more than 2,000 people in New Guinea in 1998, are the result of submarine landslides (though these can themselves be triggered by earthquakes, as was the case in New Guinea). Indeed, a few years ago it was suggested that a landslide in an unstable part of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, might cause a tsunami that would devastate the east coast of America. Even if you have an effective detection system, though, it is useless if you cannot evacuate a threatened area. Here, speed is of the essence. Computer modeling can help show which areas are likely to be safest, but common sense is often the best guide—run like the wind, away from the sea. Evacuation warnings, too, should be easy to give as long as people are awake. Radios are ubiquitous, even in most poor places. It is just a matter of having systems in place to tell the radio stations to tell people to run. The problem was that no one did.

Recruiting New Members Write an ad of about 100 words based on the following situation: The Martial Art Association in your university wants to recruit new members. Please inform others of the advantages and requirements of being a member of the association. Do not sign your own name at the end of the ad. Use "The Martial Art Association" instead. Do not write the address.

Birth, growth, decline, death: it is the usual cycle for people, companies and industries. But the story of violin-making in Cremona in northern Italy, which flourished under such master craftsmen as Andrea Amati, Giuseppe Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari from the mid-16th century to the early 18th, suggests that, for industries at least, there may be life after death. Violin-making in Cremona struggled through the 19th century in the hands of a few carpenters who turned out low-quality instruments. By the 1950s it had died out, says Gio Batta Morassi, a 73-year-old maestro liutaio (master violin-maker). Yet today, in workshops overlooking the city"s cobbled streets, more than 100 craftsmen cut and plane maple and spruce to make string instruments—more than in any other European city. Cremona is once again the capital of hand-crafted instruments. A new school to train craftsmen in instrument-making opened in Cremona in 1938, though when Mr. Morassi began his studies in 1950 there were just six students on the course, of whom only one other went on to make instruments. But this slight revival was sustained by a growing interest in Baroque music in northern Europe in the 1960s and 1970s, says Hildegard Dodel, a German who studied at the school. It created new demand for instruments made in the traditional Cremonese style. Today Italians are a minority among the school"s 150 students; 30 are South Korean, 26 are Japanese, six are from China and three from Taiwan. Some will set up shop in the city: Ms Dodel worked for about ten years restoring and repairing instruments in Germany and the Netherlands before returning to open her own workshop in Cremona in 2003. Instrument-making is not an easy life. "I often thought of giving up," says Francesco Toto, who moved to Cremona 17 years ago and specializes in making cellos. Wood is expensive, must be seasoned properly and is at risk from woodworm; the maple for a cello costs around € 1,500, for example. Mr. Toto was able to raise his prices after winning a competition, but to maintain quality he makes just four instruments a year. Violin-makers can produce perhaps seven top-quality instruments a year. (Cellos made by Cremona"s craftsmen typically cost € 15,000-35,000, and violins € 8,000-20,000.) Having come back from the dead, Cremona"s instrument-makers, like many others in Italian industries, hope that an emphasis on quality, tradition and craftsmanship will keep cheaper foreign rivals at bay.

You may have another three minutes.