Giving Advice to a Younger Cousin Write an e-mail of about 100 words based on the following situation: Your cousin Ann will finish the high school course this month. She is undecided whether to take a college course or to accept a job. Now write her an e-mail to give her your advice. Do not sign your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Joy William"s quirky fourth novel The Quick and the Dead follows three 16-year-old misfits in an abnormal Charlie"s Angels set in the American south-west. Driven unclearly to defend animal rights, the girls accomplish little beyond curse: they rescue a wounded ox and hurl stones at stuffed elephants. In what is structurally a road novel that ends up where it began, the threesome stumbles upon both cruelty to animals and unlikely romance. A mournful dog is killed by an angry neighbor, a taxidermist falls in love with an 8-year-old direct-action firebrand determined that he pays for his sins. A careen across the barely tamed Arizona prairie, this peculiar book aims less for a traditional storyline than a sequence of noisy (often hilarious) conversations, ridiculous circumstances, and absurdist scene. The consequent long-walk-to-nowhere is both the book"s limitation and its charm. All three girls are motherless. Fiercely political Alice discovers that her parents are her grandparents, who thereupon shrivel: "Lie had kept them young whereas the truth had accelerated them practically into oldness". Both parents of the sorrowful Corvus drowned while driving on a flooded interstate off-ramp. The mother of the more conventional Annabel ("one of those people who would say, we"ll get in touch soonest" when they never wanted to see you again") slammed her car drunkenly into a fish restaurant. Later, Annabel"s father observes to his wife"s ghost. "You didn"t want to order what I ordered, darling". The sharp-tongued ghost snaps back: "That"s because you always ordered badly and wanted me to experience your miserable mistake". Against a roundly apocalyptic world view, the great pleasures of this book are line-by-line. Ms. Williams can break setting and character alike in a few slashes: "it was one of those rugged American places, a remote, sad-ass, but courageous downwind town whose citizens were flawed and brave". Alice"s acerbity spits little wisdoms: putting lost teeth under a pillow for money is "a classic capitalistic consumer trick, designed to wean you away at an early age from healthy horror" and sensible dismay to greedy, deluded, sunny expectancy". Whether or not the novel, like Alice, expressly advocates animal rights, an animal motif crops up in every scene, as flesh-and-blood "critters" (usually dead) or plain decoration on crockery. If Ms. Williams does not intend to induce human horror at a pending cruel Armageddon, she at least invokes a future of earthly loneliness, where animals appear only as ceramic-hen butter dishes and extinct-species Elastoplasts. One caution: when flimsy narrative superstructure begins to sag, anarchic wackiness can grow wearing. While The Quick and the Dead is sharp from its first page, the trouble with starting at the edge is there is nowhere to go. Nevertheless, Ms. Williams is original, energetic and viscously funny: Carl Hiaasen with a conscience.

In 1967, in response to widespread public concern aroused by medical reports of asbestos that related deaths, the National Medical Research Council organized a committee of enquiry to investigate the health threats associated with the use of asbestos in the building industry. After examining evidences provided by medical researchers and building workers and management, the Council published a report which included advices for dealing with asbestos. The report confirmed the findings of similar research in the United States and Canada. Exposure to relatively small quantities of asbestos fibers, they concluded, was directly responsible for the development of cancers, asbestosis and related diseases. Taking into account evidence provided by economists and building industry management, however, the report assumed that despite the availability of other materials, asbestos would continue to play a major role in the British building industry for many years to come because of its availability and low cost. As a result, the council gave a series of recommendations which were intended to reduce the risks to those who might be exposed to asbestos in working environments. They recommended that, where possible, asbestos free materials should be employed. In cases where asbestos was employed, it was recommended that it should be used in such a way that loose fibres were less likely to enter the air. The report recommended that special care should be taken during work in environments which contain asbestos. Workers should wear protective equipment and take special care to remove dust from the environment and clothing with the use of vacuum cleaner. The report identified five factors which determine the level of risk involved. The state and type of asbestos is critical to determining the risk factors. In addition, dust formation was found to be limited where the asbestos was used when wet rather than dry. The choice of tools was also found to affect the quantities of asbestos particles that enter the air. Machine tools produce greater quantities of dust than hand tools and, where possible, the use of the latter was recommended. A critical factor takes place in risk reduction is the adequate ventilation of the working environment. When work takes place in an enclosed space, more asbestos particles circulate and it was therefore recommended that natural or machine ventilation should be used. By closely following these advices, it was claimed that exposure can be reduced to a reasonably practical minimum.

Thefollowingparagraphsaregiveninawrongorder.ForQuestions1-5,youarerequiredtoreorganizetheseparagraphsintoacoherenttextbychoosingfromthelistA-Gandfillingthemintothenumberedboxes.ParagraphsAandEhavebeencorrectlyplaced.[A]Somearchaeologicalsiteshavealwaysbeeneasilyobservable—forexample,theParthenoninAthens,Greece;thepyramidsofGizainEgypt;andthemegalithsofStonehengeinsouthernEngland.Butthesesitesareexceptionstothenorm.Mostarchaeologicalsiteshavebeenlocatedbymeansofcarefulsearching,whilemanyothershavebeendiscoveredbyaccident.OlduvaiGorge,anearlyhominidsiteinTanzania,wasfoundbyabutterflyhunterwholiterallyfellintoitsdeepvalleyin1911.ThousandsofAztecartifactscametolightduringthediggingoftheMexicoCitysubwayinthe1970s.[B]Inanothercase,AmericanarchaeologistsReneMillionandGeorgeCowgillspentyearssystematicallymappingtheentirecityofTeotihuacanintheValleyofMexiconearwhatisnowMexicoCityatitspeakaroundAD600,thiscitywasoneofthelargesthumansettlementsintheworld.Theresearchersmappednotonlythecity"svastandornateceremonialareas,butalsohundredsofsimplerapartmentcomplexeswherecommonpeoplelived.[C]Howdoarchaeologistsknowwheretofindwhattheyarelookingforwhenthereisnothingvisibleonthesurfaceoftheground?Typically,theysurveyandsample(maketestexcavationson)largeareasofterraintodeterminewhereexcavationwillyieldusefulinformation.Surveysandtestsampleshavealsobecomeimportantforunderstandingthelargerlandscapesthatcontainarchaeologicalsites.[D]Surveyscancoverasinglelargesettlementorentirelandscapes.Inonecase,manyresearchersworkingaroundtheancientMayacityofCopan,Honduras,havelocatedhundredsofsmallruralvillagesandindividualdwellingsbyusingaerialphotographsandbymakingsurveysonfoot.TheresultingsettlementmapsshowhowthedistributionanddensityoftheruralpopulationaroundthecitychangeddramaticallybetweenAD500and850,whenCopancollapsed.[E]Tofindtheirsites,archaeologiststodayrelyheavilyonsystematicsurveymethodsandavarietyofhigh-technologytoolsandtechniques.Airbornetechnologies,suchasdifferenttypesofradarandphotographicequipmentcarriedbyairplanesorspacecraft,allowarchaeologiststolearnaboutwhatliesbeneaththegroundwithoutdigging.Aerialsurveyslocategeneralareasofinterestorlargerburiedfeatures,suchasancientbuildingsorfields.[F]Mostarchaeologicalsites,however,arediscoveredbyarchaeologistswhohavesetouttolookforthem.Suchsearchescantakeyears.BritisharchaeologistHowardCarterknewthatthetomboftheEgyptianpharaohTutankhamumexistedfrominformationfoundinothersites.CartersiftedthroughrubbleintheValleyoftheKingsforsevenyearsbeforehelocatedthetombin1922.Inthelate1800sBritisharchaeologistSirArthurEvanscombedantiquedealers"storesinAthens,Greece.HewassearchingfortingengravedsealsattributedtotheancientMycenaeanculturethatdominatedGreecefromthe1400sto1200sBC.Evans"sinterpretationsofthoseengravingseventuallyledthemtofindtheMinoanpalaceatKnossos(Knosos),ontheislandofCrete,in1900.[G]Groundsurveysallowarchaeologiststopinpointtheplaceswheredigswillbesuccessful.Mostgroundsurveysinvolvealotofwalking,lookingforsurfacecluessuchassmallfragmentsofpottery.Theyoftenincludeacertainamountofdiggingtotestforburiedmaterialsatselectedpointsacrossalandscape.Archaeologistsalsomaylocateburiedremainsbyusingsuchtechnologiesasgroundradar,magnetic-fieldrecording,andmetaldetectors.Archaeologistscommonlyusecomputerstomapsitesandthelandscapesaroundsites.Twoandthree-dimensionalmapsarehelpfultoolsinplanningexcavations,illustratinghowsiteslook,andpresentingtheresultsofarchaeologicalresearch.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) Theories of the value of art are of two kinds, which we may call extrinsic and intrinsic. The first regards art and the appreciation of art as means to some recognized moral good, while the second regards them as valuable not instrumentally but as objects unto themselves. It is characteristic of extrinsic theories to locate the value of art in its effects on the person who appreciates it. (41)______. The extrinsic approach, adopted in modem times by Leo Tolstoy in What Is Art in 1896, has seldom seemed wholly satisfactory. Philosophers have constantly sought for a value in aesthetic experience that is unique to it and that, therefore, could not be obtained from any other source. The extreme version of this intrinsic approach is that associated with Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and the French Symbolists, and summarized in the slogan "art for art"s sake". (42)______. Between those two extreme views there lies, once again, a host of intermediate positions. We believe, for example, that works of art must be appreciated for their own sake, but that, in the act of appreciation, we gain from them something that is of independent value. (43)______. The analogy with laughter—which, in some views, is itself a species of aesthetic interest—introduces a concept without which there can be no serious discussion of the value of art: the concept of taste. (44)______. Similarly, we regard some works of art as worthy of our attention and others as not. In articulating this judgment, we use all of the diverse and confusing vocabulary of moral appraisal; works of art, like people, are condemned for their sentimentality, coarseness, vulgarity, cruelty, or self-indulgence, and equally praised for their warmth, compassion, nobility, sensitivity, and truthfulness. Clearly, if aesthetic interest has a positive value, when motivated by good taste; it is only interest in appropriate objects that can be said to be good for us. (45)______.A. Thus a joke is laughed at for its own sake, even though there is an independent value in laughter, which lightens our lives by taking us momentarily outside ourselves. Why should not something similar be said of works of art, many of which aspire to be amusing in just the way that good jokes are?B. All discussion of the value of art tends, therefore, to turn from the outset in the direction of criticism. Can there be genuine critical evaluation of art, a genuine distinction between that which deserves our attention and that which does not?C. Art is held to be a form of education, perhaps an education of the emotions. In this case, it becomes an open question whether there might not be some more effective means of the same result. Alternatively, one may attribute a negative value to art, as Plato did in his Republic, arguing that art has a corrupting or diseducative effect on those exposed to it.D. Artistic appreciation, a purely personal matter, calls for appropriate means of expression. Yet, it is before anything a process of "cultivation", during which a certain part of one"s "inner self" is "dug out" and some knowledge of the outside world becomes its match.E. If I am amused it is for a reason, and this reason lies in the object of my amusement. We thus begin to think in terms of a distinction between good and bad reasons for laughter. Amusement at the wrong things may seem to us to show corruption of mind, cruelty, or bad taste; and when it does so, we speak of the object as not truly amusing, and feel that we have reason on our side.F. Such thinkers and writers believe that art is not only an end in itself but also a sufficient justification of itself. They also hold that in order to understand art as it should be understood, it is necessary to put aside all interests other than an interest in the work itself.

In George Orwell's Animal Farm the mighty cart-horse, Boxer, inspires the other animals with his heroic cry of "I will work harder". He gets up at the crack of dawn to do a couple of hours' extra ploughing. He even refuses to take a day off. And his reward for all this effort? As soon as he collapses on the job he is sent to the knacker's yard to be turned into glue and bone-meal. Animal Farm looks ever more like an allegory about capitalism as well as socialism. Everybody knows about the plague of unemployment. But unemployment is bringing another plague in its wake— overwork. The Hay Group, a British consultancy which recently surveyed 1,000 people, says that two-thirds of workers report they are putting in unpaid overtime. The reward for all this effort is frozen pay and shrinking perks. The only difference between these overstretched workers and Boxer is that they can see the knacker's van coming. So far workers have borne all this with remarkable perseverance—partly because they feel lucky to keep their jobs and partly because they want to save their firms from going under. But the Dunkirk spirit is beginning to fade . The Hay survey notes that 63% of workers say that their employers do not appreciate their extra effort. Half report that their current level of work is unsustainable. People are wearying of frantic reorganization as well as the added toil-floods of memos and meetings, endless reshuffles, earnest persuasions to do more with less. For their part, companies are beginning to notice the downside of all this overstretching. Absenteeism is on the rise. Corporate loyalty is on the wane. And the biggest danger for companies is if workers head for the door as the economy picks up. Most problematic of all is when star employees decide to look for work elsewhere. These "high-potentials"(HiPos)are doubly frustrated: they have been asked to shoulder a disproportionate share of the growing burden of work and they have seen senior jobs dry up as older managers try to cling to their positions. What can organizations do to cope with this new era of overwork? Most obviously they can redouble efforts to make staff feel valued. Cash-strapped companies are making more use of symbolic rewards. A second strategy is to make more use of that old favorite, "empowerment". This means trying harder to explain why companies are acting as they are. A third strategy is to pay particular attention to high performers. A striking number of companies have introduced "HiPo schemes" to identify and nurture potential stars. Yet this approach is less divisive than it sounds because some animals are more equal than others.

It is a favorite pastime of older people to lament the defects of the young. Every generation seems to be convinced that in its day, standards were higher, schools were tougher and kids were smarter. But if I.Q. scores are any measure, and even their critics agree they measure something, people are getting smarter. Researchers who study intelligence say scores around the world have been increasing so fast that a high proportion of people regarded as normal at the turn of the century would be considered way below average by today"s tests. Psychologists offer a variety of possible explanations for the increase, including better nutrition, urbanization, more experience with test taking, and smaller families. Some even say that television and video games have made children"s brains more agile. But no explanation is without its critics, and no one can say with certainty what effects, if any, the change is having on how people lead their daily lives. It is all the more mysterious because it seems to be happening in the absence of a simultaneous increase in scores on achievement tests. One explanation for the rise is ruled out: genetics. Because the increase has taken place in a relatively short period of time, it cannot be due to genetic factors. The worldwide pattern of rising scores in industrialized nations was discovered by Dr. James R. Flynn, now a professor at the University of Otego, New Zealand. He began looking into the subject in the 1980"s in an effort to rebut Dr. Arthur Jensen, the professor from the UC Berkeley who argued that even if the environments of blacks and whites were equalized, the 15-point gap in I. Q. scores between the races would only be partly eliminated. As Dr. Flynn investigated, he found that I. Q. scores were going up almost everywhere he looked. Although the gap remains, Dr. Flynn said the movement in scores suggests that the gap need not be permanent. If blacks in 1995 had the same mean I. Q. that whites had in 1945, he said, it may be that the average black environment of 1995 was equivalent in quality to the average white environment of 1945. "Is that really so implausible?" Dr. Flynn asked. Meanwhile, the kinds of intelligence that are promoted and respected vary from time to time, said Dr. Patricia Greenfield, a psychology professor at the UCLA. Playing computer games like Tetris promotes very different skills from reading novels. The new skills, she said, are manifested in the world. "Flynn will tell you we don"t have more Mozarts and Beethovens," Dr. Greenfield said, "I say, look at the achievements of science, like DNA. Or look at all the technological developments of this century. "

In 1977, the year before I was born, a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its landmark "Dietary Goals for the United States," urging Americans to eat less high-fat red meat, eggs and dairy and replace them with more calories from fruits, vegetables and especially carbohydrates. By 1980 that wisdom was codified. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued its first dietary guidelines, and one of the primary directives was to avoid cholesterol (胆固醇) and fat of all sorts. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 cut fat consumption, and that same year the government announced the results of a $150 million study, which had a clear message: Eat less fat and cholesterol to reduce your risk of a heart attack. The food industry—and American eating habits—jumped in step. Grocery shelves filled with "light" yogurts, low-fat microwave dinners, cheese-flavored crackers, cookies. Families like mine followed the advice: beef disappeared from the dinner plate, eggs were replaced at breakfast with cereal or yolk-free beaters, and whole milk almost wholly vanished. From 1977 to 2012, per capita consumption of those foods dropped while calories from supposedly healthy carbohydrates increased—no surprise , given that breads, cereals and pasta were at the base of the USDA food pyramid. The nation was embarking on a "vast nutritional experiment," as the skeptical president of the National Academy of Sciences, Philip Handler, put it in 1980. But with nearly a million Americans a year dropping dead from heart disease by the mid-'80s, it had to try something. Nearly four decades later, the results are in: the experiment was a failure. Americans cut the fat, but by almost every measure, they are sicker than ever. The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the US increased 166% from 1980 to 2012. Nearly 1 in 10 American adults has the disease, costing the country's health care system $245 billion a year, and an estimated 86 million people are prediabetic. Deaths from heart disease have fallen—a fact that many experts attribute to better emergency care, less smoking and widespread use of cholesterol-controlling drugs like statins—but cardiovascular (心血管的) disease remains the country's No. 1 killer.

OfferingYourSeatWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

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

Education is compulsory in Britain, whether at school "or otherwise"; and "other wise" is becoming more popular. In 1999, only 12,000 children were listed as being home-schooled. Now that figure is 20,000, according to Mike Fortune-Wood, an educational researcher. But he thinks that, as most home-taught children never go near a school and are therefore invisible to officialdom, the total is probably nearer 50,000. As usual, Britain lies between Europe and America. In Germany, home teaching is illegal. In America, it"s huge: over 1 million children are home-schooled, mainly by religious parents. There are a small minority among British home-educators, who consist mainly of two types: hippyish middle-class parents who dislike schools on principle, and those whose children are unhappy at school. The growth is overwhelmingly in this second category, says Roland Meighan, a home-education expert and publisher. One reason is that technology has made home-education easier. The internet allows parents to know as much as teachers. It is also a way of organizing get-togethers, sharing tips and outwitting official hassles. That supplements e vents such as the annual home-education festival last week, where 1,600 parents and children enjoyed Egyptian dancing and labyrinth-building on a muddy hillside in Devon. But a bigger reason for the growth is changing attitudes. Centralisation, government targets and a focus on exams have made state schools less customer friendly and more boring. Classes are still based strictly on age groups, which is hard for children who differ sharply from the average. Mr. Fortune-Wood notes that the National Health Service is now far more accommodating of patients" wishes about timing, venue and treatment. "It"s happened in health. Why can"t it happen in education?" he asks. Perhaps because other businesses tend to make more effort to satisfy individual needs, parents are getting increasingly picky. In the past, if their child was bullied, not coping or bored, they tended to put up with it. Now they complain, and if that doesn"t work they vote with their (children"s) feet. Some educationalists worry that home-schooling may hurt children"s psychological and educational development. Home educators cite statistics showing that it helps both educational attainment and the course of grown-up life. Labour"s latest big idea in education is "personalisation", which is intended to al low much more flexible timing and choice of subjects. In theory, that might stem the drift to home—schooling. Many home-educators would like to be able to use school facilities occasionally—in science lessons, say, or to sit exams. But for now, schools, and the officials who regulate them, like the near-monopoly created by the rule of "all or nothing".

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Stocks finished mixed in post-holiday trading yesterday as Wall Street meandered through a shortened session. (46) The major indexes ended the week higher as investors looked forward to the results of the first weekend of holiday shopping and a key jobs report next week. Wall Street struggled to continue its bullish streak, albeit in very light trading, as continued weakness in the dollar weighed on stocks. (47) Reports that the Chinese central bank had sold off some of its US Treasury notes due to the low dollar turned out to be unsubstantiated, boosting the dollar against the yen. The dollar reached another new low against the euro, however. The trading day ended at 1 p.m. EST as part of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Investors already looked to next week for further news, hoping that consumer spending over the holidays would help revive the overall economy. The Labor Department is expected to release job-creation figures next Friday that Wall Street hopes will show signs of stronger job growth. (48) "Traditionally, this is a pretty light trading day, but the people who are in the market really want to be here, and they"re coming in with a positive bias," said Jack Caffrey, equities strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. "Most everyone else will be looking ahead to next week to see how the retailers did this weekend and see how job growth will progress." As the holiday shopping season got under way with early morning sales across the country, retail stocks were mostly higher. Dow component Wal-Mart Stores Inc. lost 18 cents to $55.32 to buck the overall trend, while Target Corp. added 24 cents to$52.21, Federated Department Stores Inc. was up 34 cents at $57.33 and May Department Stores Co. rose 55 cents to $30.19. (49) Chip stocks failed to get a substantial boost from the Semiconductor Industry Association"s latest sales report, which showed a 22 percent year-over-year increase in sales in October. Sales rose 1.5 percent month-to-month. Dow component Intel Corp. lost 40 cents to $23.21 on the news, while Advanced Micro Devices Inc. slipped 4 cents to $21.53. Delta Air Lines Inc. lost 6 cents to $6.92 after it said late Wednesday that it reached new agreements with its lenders and aircraft lessors, wrangling $57 million in concessions from 2005 through 2009 in exchange for 4.4 million shares of Delta stock. (50) Oracle Corp. said it will nominate four people to the board of PeopleSoft Inc., part of its bid to acquire the rival software company that likely will trigger a proxy battle. Oracle slipped 13 cents to $12.66, while PeopleSoft was up 2 cents at $23.54.

Suppose you were taken good care of by Aunt Wang when you visited Shanghai where she lived. Write a letter to her to extend your appreciation. Begin your letter as follows: Dear Aunt Wang, You should write about 100 words and do not sign your own name, using "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Education: Examination-orientation or Quality-orientation?

Fate has not been kind to the western grey whale. Its numbers have dwindled to 130 or so, leaving it "critically endangered" in the eyes of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Fishing-nets, speeding ships, pollution and coastal development threaten the few that remain. Most recently, drilling for oil and gas in their main summer feeding grounds, near Sakhalin island off Russia"s Pacific coast, has brought fresh risks for the luckless creatures. Yet the rush to develop Sakhalin"s offshore fields may yet be the saviour of the species. When drilling was first discussed in the 1990s, there were muted complaints. When a consortium called Sakhalin Energy, led by Royal Dutch Shell, announced plans to build an oil platform and lay pipelines in the only bay where the whales were known to congregate, these protests proliferated. In response, the consortium established an independent panel to advise it on how best to protect the whales and promised to fund its work. It subsequently agreed to change the route of the pipeline at the panel"s suggestion, although it refused to move the platform, as other critics had demanded. It also agreed either to follow the panel"s recommendations in future or to explain publicly why it was rejecting them. The platforms and pipelines are now complete. Sakhalin Energy exported its first cargo of liquefied natural gas last week. The project, says Shell, is an engineering triumph and a commercial success despite all the controversy. But has it been a success for the whales? Sakhalin Energy says their number seems to be growing by 2. 5% a year, although Ian Craig, the firm"s boss, admits that the cause might be greater scrutiny rather than population growth. The scientists on the panel still seem worried. They complain that the firm has not always provided the information they need to assess the threat to the whales. It also has not always followed advice, the scientists" advice about how noisy construction might scare the animals away, for example, or the speed that boats should travel to minimize the risk of hitting the whales. The scientists warn that the loss of just a few fertile females would be enough to tip the population into irrevocable decline. Last summer, there seemed to be far fewer whales around than normal. On the other hand, the panel knows this only because Sakhalin Energy funds lots of research on the whales. As a result, it has discovered that they have a wider range than originally thought, which might explain why so few of them showed up off Sakhalin island last year. Therefore, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, for creatures with a lot as sorry as the western grey whale, a nearby oil project is something of a blessing.

When enthusiasts talk of sustainable development, the eyes of most people glaze over. There is a whiff of sack-cloth and ashes about their arguments, which usually depend on people giving up the comforts of a modern economy to achieve some debatable greater good. Yet there is a serious point at issue. Modern industry pollutes, and it also seems to cause significant changes to the climate. What is needed is an industry that delivers the benefits without the costs. And the glimmerings of just such an industry can now be discerned. That industry is based on biotechnology. At the moment, biotech"s main uses are in medicine and agriculture. But its biggest long-term impact may be industrial. Here, it will diminish demand for oil by taking the cheapest raw materials imaginable, carbon dioxide and water, and using them to make fuel and plastics. Plastics and fuels made in this way would have several advantages. They could accurately be called "renewables", since nothing is depleted to make them. They would be part of the natural carbon cycle, borrowing that element from the atmosphere for a few months, and returning it when they were burned or dumped. That means they could not possibly contribute to global warming. And they would be environmentally friendly in other ways. Bioplastics are biodegradable, since bacteria understand their chemistry and can therefore digest them. Biofuels, while not quite "zero emission" from the exhaust pipe (though a lot cleaner than petrol and diesel), would be cleaner overall even than the fuel-cell technology now being touted as an alternative to the internal-combustion engine. That is because making the hydrogen that fuel cells use is not an environmentally friendly process, and never will be—unless it, too, uses biotechnology. All this will, in the end, depend on costs. But these do not look unfavourable. Already, the price of bioplastics overlaps the top end of the petroleum-based plastics market. Bulk production should bring prices "down, particularly when the raw materials are free. Meanwhile, ethanol would be a lot easier to introduce than fuel cells. Existing engines will run on it with minor tweaking, so there is no need to change the way ears are made. And since, unlike hydrogen, it is a liquid, the fuel-distribution infrastructure would not need radical change. The future could be green in ways that traditional environmentalists had not expected. Whether they will embrace that possibility, or stick to sack-cloth, remains to be seen.

Wherever you work, you must always serve the people whole-heartedly.

The situation is not necessarily so.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B