After a shaky start, the Martian flotilla that has arrived over the past few weeks is getting down to business. Two of the five craft in it seem to be working perfectly. Two are lost, and a fifth is sick, but undergoing treatment. The most spectacular pictures so far have been provided by Mars Empress, the European Space Agency"s contribution to the fleet. On January 28th this reached its final working orbit (which takes it over both poles, and thus allows it to see the whole of Mars over the course of a few days as the planet revolves beneath it). It has, however, been sending back data since shortly after it arrived, and a few days ago its controllers released a series of beautiful photographs, including a stereo image of Valles Marineris, a huge canyon that may have been formed by flowing water. The most scientifically significant result, though, has come from Opportunity, America"s second Mars rover. One of Opportunity"s cameras has photographed evidence of stratification. in nearby rocks. Such stratification indicates that the rocks concerned are sedimentary. The layers could be repeated wind-blown deposits, or consist of ash from successive volcanic eruptions. But the terrestrial rocks they most resemble are ones that have formed under water. The reason everyone is getting so excited is because there is a widespread assumption that any form of tire which might dwell on Mars would need liquid water to live—or, even if it could now subsist by extracting moisture from ice, would have needed liquid water to evolve to that stage. Mars has seen more probes launched towards it than all of the other planets put together precisely because of this hope that it might harbor life. So there is a lot riding on the answer—not least the funding of future missions. Besides its scientific significance, the success of Opportunity has also helped to distract attention from the sudden refusal of Spirit, the first American rover to arrive on Mars, to talk to its controllers. This craft had tentatively, but successfully, nosed its way off its landing platform, and was about to drill its way into a nearby rock prior to doing a spot of chemical analysis, when it went silent. However, the engineers at NASA, America"s space agency, are nothing if not resourceful, and they have a good record of carrying out running repairs on spacecraft that are millions of kilometres away. In the case of Spirit, they think that one of the craft"s memory chips has got cluttered up with files created on the journey to Mars. That caused another chip, which manages the first, to throw a wobbly and to keep rebooting the computer. They are currently testing this idea by loading a diagnostic program on to the computer. In addition, as a precaution, they have deleted excess files from the equivalent memory chip on Opportunity. Spirit"s spirits may thus revive. As to the failures, the Japanese abandoned their fly-by craft Nozomi in December, and the British team in charge of Beagle 2, which is presumed to have landed on December 25th but from which no signal has been received, also seems to have called it quits. Still, a 40～60% success rate (depending on whether Spirit is brought back into commission) is not bad by the historical standards of missions to Mars. Now, the real science begins.

In the early industrialized countries of Europe,the process of industrialization with all the far reaching changes in social patterns that followed was spread over nearly a century, whereas nowadays a developing nation may undergo the same process in a decade or so.

[A]Thatworldisnotyetonoffer.Butasemblanceofitmightbeoneday.Senescence:,thegeneraldwindlingofprowessexperiencedbyallastimetakesitstoll,iscomingunderscrutinyfromdoctorsandbiologists.Suspendingitisnotyetonthecards.Butslowingitprobablyis.Averagelifespanshaverisenalotoverthepastcentury,butthatwasthankstobetterfood,housing,publichealthandsomemedicines.This,optimistsclaim,willextendlifeformanypeopletotoday'sceilingof120orso.Butitmaybejustthebeginning.Inthenextphasenotjustaveragelifespansbutmaximumlifespanswillrise.Ifabodypartwearsout,itwillberepairedorreplacedaltogether.DNAwillbeoptimisedforlonglife.Addinanti-ageingdrugs,andcentenarianswillbecometwoapenny.[B]Oneconcernisthatlonglifewillexacerbateexistingsocialandeconomicproblems.Themostchallengewillbeaccesstoanti-senescencetreatment.Iflongerlifeisexpensive,whogetsitfirst?Already,incomeisoneofthebestpredictorsoflifespan.Wideningthegapwithtreatmentsinaccessibletothepoormightdeependivisionsthatarealreadystrainingdemocracies.[C]Imagineasaworldinwhichgettingfittedwithanewheart,liverorsetofkidneys,allknownfromyourownbodycells,wasascommonplaceaskneeandhipreplacementsarenow.Oroneinwhichyoucelebratedyour94thbirthdaybyrunningamarathonwithyourschoolfriends.Imagine,inotherwords,aworldinwhichageinghadbeenabolished.[D]Longevityisknowntoruninfamilies,whichsuggeststhatparticularvarietiesofgenesprolonglife.Someareinvestigatingthis,withthethoughtthatmoderngene-editingtechniquesmightonedaybeusedtomakecrucial,life-extendingtweakstotheDNAofthosewhoneedthem.Fromanindividual'sviewpoint,thisallsoundsverydesirable.Fromsocietyasawhole,though,itwillhaveprofoundeffects.Mostofthemwillbegood,butnotall.[E]Suchspeculationisfun,andmostlyoptimistic.Thepromiseofalongerlife,welllived,wouldroundapersonout.Butthisvisionofthefuturedependsononething—thatalongexistenceisalsoahealthyone.HumanitymustavoidthetrapfallenintobyTithonus,amythicalTrojanwhowasgrantedeternallifebythegods,butforgottoaskalsoforeternalyouth.Eventually,hewitheredintoacicada.[F]Willolderworkersbediscriminatedagainst,asnow,orwillnumbersgivethemthewhiphandovertheyoung?Willbossesclingon,hamperingthecareersoftheirunderlings,orwilltheygrowbored,quitanddosomethingelseentirely?Andwouldallthoseoldpeopleceasetoconsiderthemselveselderly,retainingyouthfullyvigorousmentalattitudesaswellasphysicalones—orinsteadmakesocietymoreconservative(becauseoldpeopletendtobe)?[G]Tothisend,manyhopefulrepairmenarenowsettingupshop.Someofthemwanttoupgradeworn-outtissuesusingstemcells(precursorstoothersortsofcell).Suchbio-renovationisthebasisofanunproven,almostvampiric,treatmentinvogueinsomecircles:transfusionintotheoldofthebloodoftheyoung.Thebusinessofgrowingorgansfromscratchisalsoproceeding.Atthemoment,these"organoids"aresmall,imperfectandusedmainlyfordrugtesting.Butthatwillsurelychange.Order:

"The essential qualities of a true Pan-Americanism", remarked Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, "must be the same as those which constitute a good neighbour, namely mutual understanding and... a sympathetic appreciation of the other"s point of view." That is advice which the United States would do well to heed in its relations with its immediate neighbours, Canada and Mexico. Most Americans may not be aware of it, but frustrations and resentments are building just across their borders to both south and north. Of course, neighbourly ties in North America are closer than in Roosevelt"s day. Under the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), trade among the three countries has more than doubled since 1994 and cross-border investment climbed even faster. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the United States moved quickly to sign "smart border" agreements with both Canada and Mexico, to try to ensure that the demands of security did not interrupt trade. By the standards of much of the 20th century, political ties between the United States and Mexico are warm. Yet go to either border and you wouldn"t know all this. Fed up with the flow of illegal migrants from the south, the governors of Arizona and New Mexico this month declared a state of emergency. Violence between drug gangs recently led the United States temporarily to close its consulate in Nuevo Laredo, the busiest border-crossing point. The American ambassador bluntly criticises Mexico for its failure to prevent drug-related violence along the border. That has prompted retaliatory verbal blasts from Mexican officials. Canada"s mood is not much more cordial. Since September 11th, Canadians and Americans alike have become less keen on popping over what they liked to call "the world"s longest undefended border" for shopping or recreation. Canadians increasingly disagree with Americans over matters as varied as the Iraq war and gay marriage. They are disillusioned with NAFTA, claiming it has failed to prevent the United States from unlawfully punishing their exports of, for example, lumber. So what? Friction is in the nature of international relations, and the problems on the northern border are different from those in the south. Yet there is a common denominator. Americans tend to see security, migration, drugs, even trade, as domestic political issues. But so they are for Canada and Mexico too. Like it or not, Americans rely on their neighbours for prosperity, energy and help with security. It behooves all three countries to show some "sympathetic understanding".

Music comes in many forms; most countries have a style of their own. 【C1】______the turn of the century when jazz was born, America had no prominent【C2】______ of its own. No one knows exactly when jazz was【C3】______, or by whom. But it began to be 【C1】______ in the early 1900s. Jazz is Americas contribution to 【C5】______ music. In contrast to classical music, which 【C6】______ formal European traditions, jazz is spontaneous and free form. It bubbles with energy, 【C7】______the moods, interests, and emotions of the people. In the 1920s jazz【C8】______like America, and【C9】______ it does today. The【C10】______of this music are as interesting as the music 【C11】______ . American Negroes, or blacks, as they are called today, were the jazz【C12】______ . They were brought to Southern States 【C13】______slaves. They were sold to plantation owners and forced to work long 【C14】______. When a Negro died his friend and relatives 【C15】______ a procession to carry the body to the cemetery. In New Orleans, a band often accompanied the 【C16】______.On the way to the cemetery the band played slow, solemn music suited to the occasion. 【C17】______on the way home the mood changed. Spirits lifted. Death had removed one of their 【C18】______ , but the living were glad to be alive. The band played【C19】______music, improvising on both the harmony and the melody of the tunes【C20】______at the funeral. This music made everyone want to dance. It was an early form of jazz.

In a large, air-conditioned room in a conference center located in a city of more than a million people, well-qualified doctors of science discuss the pros and cons of global warming, and debate how the temperature of the sea is being measured. After several hours of discussion, they walk out into the warm sunshine of a summer"s day, heading off to a comfortable restaurant for lunch. On the same day, on the sands of small islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, baked hard by the burning sun, Hemi and Naqono look at the water lapping over the place where they once stored their potato plants. They watch the waves dashing gently at the feet of their straw huts which some years ago were many metres from the seashore. Global warming is a problem for theoretical discussion among scientists all over the world. For many Pacific Islanders it is now becoming a practical problem. While international science argues about global warming and climate change, low-lying Pacific Islands are already suffering coastal erosion and crop failures. In places such as Marshall Islands, where much of the land is only a metre above sea-level, villagers face leaving their slowly disappearing homes. Scientists and officials from 13 Pacific Island Countries discussed their concerns in a Pacific conference in Aukland, New Zealand, and examined a New Zealand computer model on climate change that could provide a valuable planning tool. Lack of meteorological and tidal research means Government agencies throughout the Pacific and the world have to rely largely on anecdotal of rising sea levels eroding foreshores, and increasingly severe droughts affecting the vital coconut crop. Australian research commissioned by the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme has already calculated that human greenhouse gas emissions already measured up to 1995 will cause a 5cm to 12cm sea-level rise by 2025. Pacific Island countries fear their vulnerable low-lying homes will be the first to pay the price for the emissions of industrialized nations. A Pacific Islands Climate Change Assistance Programme is already in place and is working on plans to help Pacific Islanders who have few resources to combat the fast-changing environmental circumstances. Yumi Crisostomo, of the Marshall Islands Environmental Protection Authority, said residents of some of the 1,225 islands in the group had reported alarming coastal erosion, forcing them to shift homes inland. Some islands were only about a kilometer across, so residents had little room to move. "We may have to look at the option of internal migration within the island group," he said.

BPart B/B

Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile delinquency (crimes committed by young people) focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories【C1】______on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior【C2】______they were not sufficiently penalized for previous misdeeds or that they have learned criminal behavior through【C3】______with others. Theories focusing on the role of society suggest that children commit crimes in【C4】______to their failure to rise above their socioeconomic status,【C5】______as a rejection of middle-class values. Most theories of juvenile delinquency have focused on children from disadvantaged families,【C6】______the fact that children from wealthy homes also commit crimes. The latter may commit crimes【C7】______lack of adequate parental control. All theories, however, are tentative and are【C8】______to criticism. Changes in the social structure may indirectly【C9】______juvenile crime rates. For example, changes in the economy that【C10】______to fewer job opportunities for youth and rising unemployment【C11】______make gainful employment increasingly difficult to obtain. The resulting discontent may in【C12】______lead more youths into criminal behavior. Families have also【C13】______changes these years. More families consist of one-parent households or two working parents;【C14】______, children are likely to have less supervision at home【C15】______was common in the traditional family【C16】______. This lack of parental supervision is thought to be an influence on juvenile crime rates. Other【C17】______causes of offensive acts include frustration or failure in school, the increased【C18】______of drugs and alcohol, and the growing【C19】______of child abuse and child neglect. All these conditions tend to increase the probability of a child committing a criminal act,【C20】______a direct causal relationship has not yet been established.

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

The Tuscan town of Vinci, birthplace of Leonardo and home to a museum of his machines, should fittingly put on a show of the television-robot sculptures of Nam Jun Paik. This Korean-born American artist and the Renaissance master are kindred spirits: Leonardo saw humanistic potential in his scientific experiments, Mr. Paik endeavors to harness media technology for artistic purposes. A pioneer of video art in the late 1960s, he treats television as a space for art images and as material for robots and interactive sculptures. Mr. Paik was not alone. He and fellow artists picked on the video cameras because they offered an easy way to record their performance art. Now, to mark video art"s coming of age, New York"s Museum of Modern Art is looking back at their efforts in a film series called "The First Decade". It celebrates the early days of video by screening the archives of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), one of the world"s leading distributors of video and new media art, founded 30 years ago. One of EAI"s most famous alumni is Bill Viola. Part of the second generation of video artists, who emerged in the 1970s, Mr. Viola experimented with video"s expressive potential His camera explores religious ritual and universal ideas. The Viola show at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin shows us moving-image frescoes that cover the gallery walls and envelop the viewer in all-embracing cycles of life and death. One new star is a Californian, Doug Aitken, who took over London"s Serpentine Gallery last October with an installation called "New Ocean". Some say Mr. Aitken is to video what Jackson Pollock was to painting. He drips his images from floor to ceiling, creating sequences of rooms in which the space surrounds the viewer in hallucinatory images, of sound and light. At the Serpentine, Mr. Aitken created a collage of moving images, on the theme of water"s flow around the planet as a force of life. "I wanted to create a new topography in this work, a liquid image, to show a world that never stands still," he says. The boundary between the physical world and the world of images and information, he thinks, is blurring. The interplay of illusion and reality, sound and image, references to art history, politics, film and television in this art form that is barely 30 years old can make video art difficult to define. Many call it film-based or moving-image art to include artists who work with other cinematic media. At its best, the appeal of video art lies in its versatility, its power to capture the passing of time and on its ability to communicate both inside and outside gallery walls.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethepicturebriefly,2)interpretthesocialphenomenonreflectedbyit,andthen3)giveyourpointofview.

Generally speaking, a British is widely regarded as a quiet, shy and conservative person who is【C1】______only among those with whom he is acquainted. When a stranger is at present, he often seems nervous, 【C2】______embarrassed. You have to take a commuter train any morning or evening to【C3】______the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or dozing in a corner; hardly anybody talks, since to do so would be considered quite offensive. 【C4】______, there is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior which, 【C5】______ broken, makes the offender immediately the object of 【C6】______ . It has been known as a fact that the a British has a 【C7】______for the discussion of their weather and that, if given a chance, he will talk about it 【C8】______. Some people argue that it is because the British weather seldom【C9】______ forecast and hence becomes a source of interest and 【C10】______ to everyone. This may be so. 【C11】______ a British cannot have much 【C12】______ in the weathermen, who, after promising fine, sunny weather for the following day, are often proved wrong 【C13】______ a cloud over the Atlantic brings rainy weather to all districts! The man in the street seems to be as accurate—or as inaccurate—as the weathermen in his【C14】______ . Foreigners may be surprised at the number of references【C15】______ weather that the British make to each other in the course of a single day. Very often conversational greetings are 【C16】______ by comments on the weather. "Nice day, isn" t it? " "Beautiful!" may well be heard instead of "Good morning, how are you?" 【C17】______ the foreigner may consider this exaggerated and comic, it is worthwhile pointing out that it could be used to his advantage. 【C18】______ he wants to start a conversation with a British but is 【C19】______ to know where to begin, he could do well to mention the state of the weather. It is a safe subject which will 【C20】______ an answer from even the most reserved of the British.

[A] If that is the case, you can drop casual hints to jog their memory:" I enjoyed talking with you about PDAs in the elevator the other day."[B] I'm annoyed when people send bulk e-mails with attached PDF or Word documents that contain nothing more than a few paragraphs of ordinary text. I'd much rather get a plain text message, with a link to where I can download the full version if I want to enjoy all the colors and typefaces. Sending a 1MB attachment to hundreds or thousands of employees is a huge waste of digital resources.[C] Even if your reply is, "Sorry, I'm too busy to help you now," at least your correspondent won't be waiting in vain for your reply.[D] My e-mail accounts get dozens of virus-bearing junk mails each day, often bearing a vague title such as "That file you requested," or no title at all. You'll get a faster response if your recipient can tell from the subject line that it's a real message from a real person.[E] When you are writing to a friend or a close colleague, it is OK to use "similes", abbreviations (IIRC for "if I recall correctly" ,LOL for "laughing out loud," etc.) and nonstandard punctuation and spelling (like that found in instant messaging or chat rooms).[F] While your spell checker won't catch every mistake, at the very least it will catch a few typos. If you are sending a message that will be read by someone higher up on the chain of command ( a superior or professor, for instance) , or if you're about to mass-mail dozens or thousands of people, take an extra minute or two before you hit "send". Show a draft to a close associate, in order to see whether it actually makes sense. You may already use e-mail socially. The informal notes you exchange with your friends don't have to meet any particular standards, of course, but if you want to be taken seriously by professionals, you should know formal e-mail etiquette. What follows are tips to help you write effective professional e-mails: Write a meaningful subject line. Recipients scan the subject line in order to decide whether to open, forward, file, or trash a message. Remember—your message is not the only one in your recipient's mailbox.【C1】______ Keep the message focused and readable. Often recipients only read partway through a long message, hit "reply" as soon as they have something to contribute, and forget to keep reading. This is part of human nature. If your e-mail contains multiple messages that are only loosely related, in order to avoid the risk that your reader will reply only to the first item that grabs his or her fancy, you could number your points to ensure they are all read (adding an introductory line that states how many parts there are to the message). If the points are substantial enough, split them up into separate messages so your recipient can delete, respond, file, or forward each item individually. Keep your message readable. Avoid attachments. Put your information the body of your e-mail whenever possible. Avoid attachments because they are increasingly dangerous carriers of viruses, and it also take time to download. Instead of sending a whole word processor file, just copy and paste the relevant text into the e-mail (unless of course your recipient actually needs to view file in order to edit or archive it).【C2】______ Identify yourself clearly. When contacting someone cold, always include your name, occupation, and any other important identification information in the first few sentences. If you are following up on a face-to-face contact, you might appear too timid if you assume your recipient doesn't remember you.【C3】______ Proofread. If you are asking someone else to do work for you, take the time to make your message look professional.【C4】______ Respond Promptly. If you want to appear professional and courteous, make yourself available to your online correspondents.【C5】______

In the 2006 film version of The Devil Wears Prada , Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, scolds her unattractive assistant for imagining that high fashion doesn"t affect her, Priestly explains how the deep blue color of the assistant"s sweater descended over the years from fashion shows to departments stores and to the bargain bin in which the poor girl doubtless found her garment. This top-down conception of the fashion business couldn"t be more out of date or at odds with the feverish world described in Overdressed, Elizabeth Cline"s three-year indictment of "fast fashion". In the last decade or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H her example can"t be knocked off. Though several fast-fashion companies have made efforts to curb their impact on labor and the environment—including H people will only start shopping more sustainably when they can"t afford not to.

Several weeks ago. three of the country"s most respected institutions of higher learning, Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia, announced that they were embarking on a nationwide campaign to recruit more poor students. Consider the efforts to recruit poor students. Harvard, Princeton, and U. Va. are reacting to a troubling pattern; The percentage of low-income students at elite colleges and universities is quite low. Precise figures are hard to come by, but a 2004 report indicated that at the most selective colleges, only 3 percent of the students were from the poorest sector of society, and only 10 percent from the bottom half. Perhaps even more troubling, the percentage of low-income students on some campuses has declined over the last decade. Ten years ago at the University of Virginia, for example, more than 10 percent of the students came from low-income households; today, less than 7 percent do. Many college campuses are becoming the province of the economic elite, where the very essence of the American Dream—that a child from a modest home can, by dint of hard work, climb as far as talent will take him or her—seems to be fading from view. The effort by these three institutions to recruit more poor students is laudable, but it"s also like treating the symptom rather than the disease. The real problem is not that there are bus loads of qualified poor students every year who just decide to give Harvard a pass. It"s that there are far too few poor students who are even remotely prepared to attend Harvard. Stepping up the recruitment of poor students might create a more diverse campus and therefore benefit colleges and universities, as well as the lucky few poor students who attend them. But why don"t college presidents also talk publicly about the fact that so few poor students seem prepared to attend college, let alone an elite university? Better still, why not talk about what to do about that fact? The failure of college and university presidents to speak out on this issue is symptomatic of a broader problem: These leaders are pretty much invisible in the public sphere and, most jarringly, in the debates and discussions about K12 education. To be sure, college presidents are busy people, with complicated institutions to guide and plenty of problems of their own. But they are also leaders in the larger enterprise of education, and they are in an unparalleled position to make a valuable contribution to the discussion of what should happen to students before they graduate from high school. Perhaps instead of just focusing on the bottom line, they should be thinking more about the broader picture.

LoveIsLimitlessWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Why in an age of advanced technology, should so many people still cling to an ancient belief? In part it must be because astrology—claims to tell us something about ourselves, and all of us are interested in ourselves. I think it is because astrology is presented as if it were a science by its modern practitioner, and many people are misled by this. In fact, astrology was never a science. It was not a hypothesis or theory developed to describe natural phenomena, and until fairly recent times, there was not attempt to test or verify its predictions. Astrology began approximately three thousand years ago in Babylonia; it was applied to monarchs and kingdoms, but not to individuals. It spread in the 6th century BC as far as India, where it flourishes today. The Egyptians, meanwhile, developed their own kind of astrology. But the astrology now practiced in Europe and America is that developed by the Greeks, who synthesized the ideas of the Babylonians and Egyptians and enriched them with concepts from their own fertile imaginations. The Greeks believed that the earth was composed of four elements, and the heavens of a perfect crystalline material. The planets themselves were variously thought to be gods, residences of gods, or at least manifestations of gods. The gods were immortal, but otherwise had the same attributes of anger, happiness, jealousy, rage and pleasure as we do. Now if what the gods" thought was capricious, at least the planets were predictable in their movements. Because our own lot in life is so unpredictable, it must be purely at the mercy of gods. But if the gods are the planets, or somehow associated with them, then we have only to learn the rules of the motions of the planets to understand the whims of the gods and how they shape our own lives. So the belief developed that each of our lives is preordained by the precise configuration of the planets in the sky at the time of our birth. Astrology could not, of course, have seemed as incredible to the ancients as it does to us. The role of the sun influencing our daily and yearly lives is obvious; it was a natural extension to attribute other powers to the other planets as well. It wasn"t until the time of Newton that we understood that the laws of Nature apply to the celestial worlds as well as to the terrestrial one. During antiquity, however, all great scholars believed in astrology.

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

OnSupportingParentsWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendingmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Title: Global Shortage of Fresh WaterYour composition should be based on the Outline given in Chinese below: 1. 人们认为淡水是取这不尽的； 2. 实际上淡水是短缺的； 3. 我们就当怎么办。 You should write about 200 words neatly.