The meanings of "science" and "technology" have changed significantly from one generation to another. More similarities than differences, however, can be found between the terms. (46) Both science and technology imply a thinking process, both are concerned with causal relationships in the material world and both employ an experimental methodology that results in empirical demonstrations that can be verified by repetition. (47) Science, at least in theory, is less concerned with the practicality of its results and more concerned with the development of general laws, but in practice science and technology are inextricably involved with each other. The varying interplay of the two can be observed in the historical development of such practitioners as chemists, engineers, physicists, astronomers, carpenters, potters, and many other specialists. Differing educational requirements, social status, vocabulary, methodology, and types of rewards, as well as institutional objectives and professional goals, contribute to such distinctions as can be made between the activities of scientists and technologists; but throughout history the practitioners of "pure" science have made many practical as well as theoretical contributions. (48) Indeed, the concept that science provides the ideas for technological innovations and that pure research is therefore essential for any significant advancement in industrial civilization is essentially a myth. Most of the greatest changes in industrial civilization cannot be traced to the laboratory. Fundamental tools and processes in the fields of mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, metallurgy, and hydraulics were developed before the laws governing their functions were discovered. The steam engine, for example, was commonplace before the science of thermodynamics elucidated the physical principle underlying its operations. In recent years a sharp value distinction has grown up between science and technology. Advances in science have frequently had their bitter opponents, but today many people have come to fear technology much more than science. (49) For these people, science may be perceived as a serene, objective source for understanding the eternal laws of nature, whereas the practical manifestations of technology in the modern world now seem to them to be out of control. (50) Many historians of science argue not only that technology is an essential condition of advanced, industrial civilization but also that the rate of technological change has developed its own momentum in recent centuries. Innovations now seem to appear at a rate that increase geometrically, without respect to geographical limits or political systems. These innovations tend to transform traditional cultural systems, frequently with unexpected social consequences. Thus technology can be conceived as both a creative and a destructive process.

You"re busy filling out the application form for a position you really need; let"s assume you once actually completed a couple of years of college work or even that you completed your degree. Isn"t it tempting to lie just a little, to claim on the form that your diploma represents a Harvard degree? Or that you finished an extra couple of years back at State University? More and more people are turning to utter deception like this to land their job or to move ahead in their careers, for personnel officers, like most Americans, value degrees from famous schools. A job applicant may have a good education anyway, but he or she assumes that chances of being hired are better with a diploma from a well-known university. Registrars at most well-known colleges say they deal with deceitful claims like these at the rate of about one per week. Personnel officers do check up on degrees listed on application forms, then, if it turns out that an applicant is lying, most colleges are reluctant to accuse the applicant directly. One Ivy League school calls them "impostors"; another refers to them as "special cases" one well-known West Coast school, in perhaps the most delicate phrase of all, says that these claims are made by "no such people." To avoid outright lies, some job-seekers claim that they "attended" or "were associated with" a college or university. After carefully checking, a personnel officer may discover that "attending" means being dismissed after one semester. It may be that "being associated with" a college means that the job seeker visited his younger brother for a football weekend. One school that keeps records of false claims says that the practice dates back at least to the turn of the century—that"s when they began keeping records, anyhow. If you don"t want to lie or even stretch the truth, there are companies that will sell you a phony diploma. One company, with offices in New York and on the West Coast, will put your name on a diploma from any number of nonexistent colleges. The price begins at around twenty dollars for a diploma from "Smoot State University." The prices increase rapidly for a degree from the "University of Purdue." As there is no Smoot State and the real school in Indiana is properly called Purdue University, the prices seem rather high for one sheet of paper.

The greatest knowledge we can receive is taken from everyday life lessons. If we learn from our many mistakes and grow from each lesson we may learn, we will be wiser, smarter and happier people. This journey we travel together, called life, holds amazing opportunities along the way. If we are aware of what is happening around us we can gain wisdom from what we observe. If we don"t learn from those around us, we lose valuable life lessons. I learned a great deal growing up with alcoholic parents. I learned from a young age what kind of parent I would strive to be. I gained a great understanding of the damage alcohol can have on a family and this life lesson is with me still today. As a young adult, I believe the greatest lessons I learned were from others and their life experiences. I grew to understand there were so many people going through situations much worse than mine. I learned to appreciate the fact that I was loved in spite of the circumstances I lived in. A friend of mine was abused and I realized my problems were minor in comparison. Another one of my best friends was involved in a car accident, and is a quadriplegic. Life takes many turns and twists and the greatest lessons are learned from these experiences. When we look around us and see so much hunger, hurt and hatred we cannot help but find our problems small and manageable. Regardless of our personal situation, we can be assured there is greater suffering all around us. There are lessons in our lives that will give us wisdom to help others. When we experience heartache,we are better able to comfort a friend. We know what they need and can be supportive of them. Life lessons come along for many reasons. To teach us to appreciate what we have. To make us aware there is always someone worse off than we are. To learn from our mistakes, teach us to grow and mature. Every day there is a new lesson to learn so we can be better human beings. We really do have the power to bring happiness and quality to our lives. Take each lesson along the way and make it count, don"t let the negative lessons bring you down but teach you to move forward to a better tomorrow.

【F1】 With the extension of democratic rights in the first half of the nineteenth century and the ensuing decline of the Federalist establishment, a new conception of education began to emerge. Education was no longer a confirmation of a pre-existing status, but an instrument in the acquisition of higher status. For a new generation of upwardly mobile students, the goal of education was not to prepare them to live comfortably in the world into which they had been born, but to teach them new virtues and skills that would propel them into a different and better world.【F2】 Education became training; and the student was no longer the gentleman-in-waiting, but the journeyman apprentice for upward mobility. In the nineteenth century a college education began to be seen as a way to get ahead in the world. The founding of the land-grant colleges opened the doors of higher education to poor but aspiring boys from non-Anglo-Saxon, working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds.【F3】 The myth of the poor boy who worked his way through college to success drew millions of poor boys to the new campuses. And with this shift, education became more vocational: its object was the acquisition of practical skills and useful information. 【F4】 For the gentleman-in-waiting, virtue consisted above all in grace and style, in doing well what was appropriate to his position; education was merely a way of acquiring polish. And vice was manifested in gracelessness, awkwardness, in behaving inappropriately, discourteously, or ostentatiously. For the apprentice, however, virtue was evidenced in success through hard work. The requisite qualities of character were not grace or style, but drive, determination, and a sharp eye for opportunity. While casual liberality and even prodigality characterized the gentleman, frugality, thrift and self-control came to distinguish the new apprentice.【F5】 And while the gentleman did not aspire to a higher station because his station was already high, the apprentice was continually becoming, striving, struggling upward. Failure for the apprentice meant standing still, not rising.

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

You heard that one of your friends failed in the entrance examination of postgraduate. Write a letter to him which should include the following information: (1) express your regrets; (2) encourage him to try again; (3) hope to see him in high spirits. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your won name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Soft money is the huge, unlimited contributions from corporations, labor union and wealthy individuals that political parties raise and spend on campaign attack ads and other (1)_____ designed to influence elections. The soft money system undermines campaign finance laws (2)_____ limit contributions and (3)_____ the sources of funds that can be spent on federal campaigns. It provides corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals a way to circumvent federal election laws and (4)_____ campaigns with tens of millions of special interest dollars, (5)_____ corporations and unions have been (6)_____ from contributing or spending their treasury finds to influence federal elections since 1907 and 1947, (7)_____. Individuals can contribute to federal (8)_____ through parties and candidates, but only in (9)_____ amounts. The Democratic and Republican parties (10)_____ $262 million in (11)_____ money for the 1996 elections. The parties raise soft money under the (12)_____ that it will be used for general party building activities. (13)_____, soft money pays for campaign ads in the way as issue discussion, political research, polling, fund raising, and get out the-vote efforts all of which affect the (14)_____ of federal elections. Soft money was the source of the 1996 political fund-raising scandals, (15)_____ the selling of the Lincoln bedroom, White House coffees and the influx of foreign money into the (16)_____ campaign. The McCain-Feingold bill (17)_____ the soft money system by prohibiting candidates and national political parties from raising soft money, and by prohibiting state political parties from (18)_____ soft money on activities which affect federal elections. In other (19)_____,the current practice of raising unlimited soft money contributions from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals, and then channeling this money into federal elections would end. The national parties would be (20)_____ to raise all of their funds under the limits and restrictions in the law.

Women"s fertility is determined in large part at birth. They are born with their total number of reproductive cells, which normally influences the age at which menopause—the shutting down of female reproductive system—begins. But in the 1990s, researchers proposed that if a child"s energy is depleted by malnutrition, disease, or other factors, he or she would be less fertile as an adult. By using the natural experiment of migration, researchers demonstrated how differences during childhood do alter the course of reproduction in adult women. Biological anthropologist Gillian Bentley of Durham University in the UK and colleagues compared levels of reproductive hormones in 250 Bangladeshi women, including women who migrated from Sylhet, Bangladesh to London; women who stayed in Sylhet; and Bangladeshi women bom in London. In the first stage of their study, they found that women who migrated from Bangladesh as children had higher levels of reproductive hormones in their saliva than women who lived in Sylhet, but less than women born in London. This had a direct effect on fertility: Migrant women in London had an 11% higher rate of ovulation—discharging of mature ovum—during their lives than did women in Sylhet, the team reported in 2007. The team has now studied 900 women between the ages of 35 and 60 to see if the beginning of menopause varies between migrants and women in Sylhet. Bentley presented preliminary results from their measurement of hormones that regulate the maturation of reproductive cells and are indirect indices of how many ova they can still produce. Her team found that migrants enter menopause later than did women who stayed in Bangladesh but earlier than did those born in London. "The adult migrants seem to be sensitive to improved conditions," says Bentley. The group is trying to find out which environmental factors in Bangladesh lower growing girls" fertility. All the Bangladeshi women in the study came from middle-class, land-owning families, who grew up with adequate calories. However, girls growing up in Bangladesh were probably exposed to more infectious diseases during crucial developmental years. So, they may have had to make tradeoffs among using energy to grow, to maintain their bodies, or to maximize their reproductive potential as adults. Bentley plans to test that idea next year when her team returns to Bangladesh to see if girls there suffer from more diseases than do those in London. "In other words," says Bentley, "where you spend your childhood influences adult reproductive function."

Fears of "mad cow" disease spread (1)_____ the globe last week (2)_____ South Africa, New Zealand and Singapore joining most of Britain"s European Union partners in (3)_____ imports of British beef. In London, steak restaurants were empty following the March 20 announcement by scientists that they had found a (4)_____ link between mad cow disease from British beef and its human (5)_____, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease(CJD). Efforts to reassure consumers and governments proved (6)_____. France, Germany, Italy, Finland and Greece were among countries which announced bans (7)_____ British beef shipments. A committee of EU veterinary experts, meeting in Brussels, (8)_____ new protective measures but said transmission of the disease from cattle to humans was unproven and did not (9)_____ a general ban on British beef exports. Britain"s own main consumer group advised people to (10)_____ beef if they wanted to be absolutely sure of not (11)_____ CJD which destroys the brain and is always (12)_____. "Could it be worse than AIDS?" The stark headline in Friday"s Daily mail newspaper encapsulated the fear and uncertainty (13)_____ Britain. CJD (14)_____ humans in the same way that BSE makes cows mad—by eating away nerve cells in the brain (15)_____ it looks like a spongy Swiss cheese. The disease is incurable. Victims show (16)_____ of dementia and memory loss and usually die (17)_____ six months. Little is known (18)_____ sure about the group of diseases known collectively as spongiform encephalopathies, which explains (19)_____ some eminent scientists are not prepared to (20)_____ a human epidemic of AIDS-like proportions.

For Tony Blair, home is a messy sort of place, where the prime minister"s job is not to uphold eternal values but to force through some unpopular changes that may make the country work a bit better. The area where this is most obvious, and where it matters most, is the public services. Mr. Blair faces a difficulty here which is partly of his own making. By focusing his last election campaign on the need to improve hospitals, schools, transport and policing, he built up expectations. Mr. Blair has said many times that reforms in the way the public services work need to go alongside increases in cash. Mr. Blair has made his task harder by committing a classic negotiating error. Instead of extracting concessions from the other side before promising his own, he has pledged himself to higher spending on public services without getting a commitment to change from the unions. Why, given that this pledge has been made, should the health unions give ground in return? In a speech on March 20th, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, said that "the something-for-nothing days are over in our public services and there can be no blank cheques". But the government already seems to have given health workers a blank cheque. Nor are other ministries conveying quite the same message as the treasury. On March 19th, John Hutton, a health minister, announced that cleaners and catering staff in new privately-funded hospitals working for the National Health service will still be government employees, entitled to the same pay and conditions as other health-service workers. Since one of the main ways in which the government hopes to reform the public sector is by using private providers, and since one of the main ways in which private providers are likely to be able to save money is by cutting labor costs, this move seems to undermine the government"s strategy. Now the government faces its hardest fight. The police need reforming more than any other public service. Half of them, for instance, retire early, at a cost of ￡1 billion ($1.4% billion) a year to the taxpayer. The police have voted 10-1 against proposals from the home secretary, David Blunkett, to reform their working practices. This is a fight the government has to win. If the police get away with it, other public service workers will reckon they can too. And, if they all get away it, Mr. Blair"s domestic policy—which is what voters are most likely to judge him on a the next election—will be a failure.

land for peace

In the late 1960's, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointing【B1】______that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot【B2】______. Skyscrapers are also enormous【B3】______, and wasters, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition【B4】 17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York City raised the 【B5】______ daily demand for electricity by 120,000 kilowatts—enough to【B6】______the entire city of Albany for a day. Glass-wailed skyscraper can be especially【B7】______. The heat loss (or gain) through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times 【B8】______ through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain【B9】______heating and air-conditioning equipment,【B10】______of skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses【B11】______with silver or gold mirror films that reduce【B12】______as well as heat gain. However,【B13】______skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and【B14】______neighboring buildings. Skyscrapers put severe pressure on a city's sanitation【B15】______, too. If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year—as【B16】______as a city the size of Stamford, Connecticut, which has a【B17】______of more than 109,000. Skyscrapers also【B18】______with television reception, block bird flyways, and obstruct air traffic. Still, people【B19】______to build skyscrapers for all the reasons that they have always built them—personal ambition and the【B20】______of owners to have the largest possible amount of rentable space.

Every living thing has an inner biological clock that controls behavior. The clock works all the time; even when there are no outside signs to mark the passing of time. The biological clock tells plants when to form flowers and when the flowers should open. It tells insects when to leave the protective cocoon and fly away. And it tells animals when to eat, sleep and wake. It controls body temperature, the release of some hormones and even dreams. These natural daily events are circadian rhythms. Man has known about them for thousands of years. But the first scientific observation of circadian rhythms was not made until 1729. In that year a French astronomer, Jean Jacques d"Ortous de Mairan, noted that one of his plants opened its leaves at the same time every morning, and closed them at the same time every night. The plant did this even when he kept it in a dark place all the time. Later scientists wondered about circadian rhythms in humans. They learned that man"s biological clock actually keeps time with a day of a little less than 25 hours instead of the 24 hours on a man-made clock. About four years ago an American doctor, Eliot Weitzman, established a laboratory to study how our biological clock works. The people in his experiments are shut off from the outside world. They are free to listen to and live by their circadian rhythms. Dr. Weitzman hopes his research will lead to effective treatments for common sleep problems and sleep disorders caused by aging and mental illness. The laboratory is in the Montefiore Hospital in New York City. It has two living areas with three small rooms in each. The windows are covered, so no sunlight or moonlight comes in. There are no radios or television receivers. There is a control room between the living areas. It contains computers, one-way cameras and other electronic devices for observing the person in the living area. A doctor or medical technician is on duty in the control room 24 hours a day during an experiment. They do not work the same time each day and are not permitted to wear watches, so the person in the experiment has no idea what time it is. In the first four years of research, Dr. Weitzman and his assistant have observed 16 men between the ages of 21 and 80. The men remained in the laboratory for as long as six months. Last month, a science reporter for The New York Times newspaper, Dava Sobel, became the first woman to take part in the experiment. She entered the laboratory on June 13th and stayed for 25 days. Miss Sobel wrote reports about the experiment during that time, which were published in the newspaper.

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

The meanings of "science" and "technology" have changed significantly from one generation to another. More similarities than differences, however, can be found between the terms. Both science and technology imply a thinking process, both are concerned with causal relationships in the material world, and both employ an experimental methodology that results in empirical demonstrations that can be verified by repetition. Science, at least in theory, is less concerned with the practicality of its results and more concerned with the development of general laws, but in practice science and technology are inextricably involved with each other. The varying interplay of the two can be observed in the historical development of such practitioners as chemists, engineers, physicists9 astronomers, carpenters, potters, and many other specialists. Differing educational requirements, social status, vocabulary, methodology, and types of rewards, as well as institutional objectives and professional goals, contribute to such distinctions as can be made between the activities of scientists and technologists; but throughout history the practitioners of "pure" science have made many practical as well as theoretical contributions. Indeed, the concept that science provides the ideas for technological innovations and that pure research is therefore essential for any significant advancement in industrial civilization is essentially a myth. Most of the greatest changes in industrial civilization cannot be traced to the laboratory. Fundamental tools and processes in the fields of mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, metallurgy, and hydraulics were developed before the laws governing their functions were discovered. The steam engine, for example, was commonplace before the science of thermodynamics elucidated the physical principle underlying its operations. In recent years a sharp value distinction has grown up between science and technology. Advances in science have frequently had their bitter opponents, but today many people have come to fear technology much more than science. For these people, science may be perceived as a serene, objective source for understanding the eternal laws of nature, whereas the practical manifestations of technology in the modern world now seem to them to be out of control. Many historians of science argue not only that technology is an essential condition of advanced, industrial civilization, but also that the rate of technological change has developed its own momentum in recent centuries. Innovations now seem to appear at a rate that increase geometrically, without respect to geographical limits or political systems. These innovations tend to transform traditional cultural systems, frequently with unexpected social consequences. Thus technology can be conceived as both a creative and a destructive process.

You are going to study at the University of Cardiff. Write a letter asking to be enrolled in its language training program. Your letter should be based on the outline given below: 1) the purpose of this letter; 2) your plan for your B.A. degree; 3) your hope. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Peng" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Ask just about any high school senior or junior in America—or their parents—and they"ll tell you that getting into a selective college is harder than it used to be. They"re right about that. But the reasons for the newfound difficulty are not well understood. Population growth plays a role, but the number of teenagers is not too much higher than it was 30 years ago, when the youngest baby boomers were still applying to college. And while many more Americans attend college than in the past, most of the growth has occurred at colleges with relatively few resources and high dropout rates, which bear little resemblance to the elites. So what else is going on? One overlooked factor is that top colleges are admitting fewer American students than they did a generation ago. Colleges have globalized over that time, deliberately increasing the share of their student bodies that come from overseas and leaving fewer slots for applicants from the United States. For American teenagers, it really is harder to get into Harvard—or Yale, Stanford, Brown, Boston College or many other elite colleges—than it was when today"s 40-year-olds or 50-year-olds were applying. The number of spots filled by American students at Harvard, after adjusting for the size of the teenage population nationwide, has dropped 27 percent since 1994. At Yale and Dartmouth, the decline has been 24 percent. At Carleton, it"s 22 percent. At Notre Dame and Princeton, it is 14 percent. This globalization obviously brings some big benefits. It has exposed American students to perspectives that our proudly parochial country often does not provide in childhood. Yet the way in which American colleges have globalized comes with costs, too. For one thing, the rise in foreign students has complicated the colleges" stated efforts to make their classes more economically diverse. Foreign students often receive insufficient financial aid and tend to be from well-off families. For another thing, the country"s most selective colleges have effectively shrunk as far as American students are concerned, during the same span that many students and their parents are spending more time obsessing over getting into one. Either way, the research emphasizes a problem with the way colleges have globalized. With only a handful of exceptions (including Harvard, Amherst, M.I.T. and Yale), colleges have not tried hard to recruit an economically diverse group of foreign students. The students instead have become a revenue source.

Condoling with a Friend on His Illness Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You hear that your friend Ken is ill. Now write a letter to comfort him and offer your help with his missed lessons. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Suppose one of your close friends, Mr. Zhang, has been hospitalized for one week. Write a letter of consolation to him. Your writing should include: 1) your reaction and 2) your best wishes. You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.(10 points)

Everyday some 16m barrels of oil leave the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz. That is enough to fill a soft-drink can for everyone on earth, or to power every motor vehicle on the planet for 25 miles (40 km). Gulf oil accounts for 40% of global trade in the sticky stuff. More important, it makes up two-thirds of known deposits. Whereas at present production rates the rest of the world"s oil reserves will last for a mere 25 years, the Gulf"s will last for 100. In other words, the region"s strategic importance is set to grow and grow. Or at least so goes the conventional wisdom, which is usually rounded out with scary talk of unstable supplies, spendthrift regimes and a potential fundamentalist menace. Yet all those numbers come with caveats. A great deal of oil is consumed by the countries that produce it rather than traded, so in reality the Gulf accounts for less than a quarter of the world"s daily consumption. As for reserves, the figures are as changeable as a mirage in the desert. The most comprehensive research available, conducted by the US Geological Survey, refers to an "expected" total volume for global hydrocarbon deposits that is about double current known reserves. Using that figure, and throwing in natural gas along with oil, it appears that the Gulf contains a more moderate 30% or so of the planet"s future fossil-fuel supplies. Leaving out the two Gulf states that are not covered in this survey—Iran and Iraq—the remaining six between them hold something like 20% of world hydrocarbon reserves, not much more than Russia. All the same, it is still a hefty chunk; enough, you might think, to keep the people living atop the wells in comfort for the foreseeable future. But you might be wrong. At present, the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council have a combined national income roughly equal to Switzerland"s, but a population which, at around 30m, is more than four times as big. It is also the fastest-growing on earth, having increased at nine times the Swiss rate over the past quarter-century. Meanwhile the region"s share of world oil trade has fallen, as has the average price per barrel. As a result, the income per person generated by GCC oil exports has been diminishing since the 1970s. True, surging demand from America and Asia has recently boosted the Gulf"s share of trade, but the medium-term outlook for oil pries remains weak. Combined with continued growth in oil consumption, this should create sustained upward pressure on prices. And high oil prices will speed the search for alternatives. Who knows, in 20 years" time fuel cells and hydrogen power may have started to become commercial propositions.