A Letter of Request Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You are striving to find a job in ABC Company. Now write a letter of request to your teacher Professor Brown, asking him to write a recommendation letter for you. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Suppose you are a member of staff at the library in your university. Your library plans to purchase some new books. Write a letter to the publishing house which includes: (1) the purpose of writing the letter; (2) an enquiry about detailed information on the new books; (3) an enquiry about a possible discount. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." It"s a classic quote from the film Casablanca, but can a computer【C1】______the magic of such classic lines? Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil and colleagues at Cornell University have taught a computer to【C2】______classic quotes with an accuracy【C3】______that of mankind. It means computers might one day help film【C4】______test their latest classic lines. The Cornell team collected quotes from the Internet Movie Database, which contains a list of lines flagged by users as deserving to be【C5】______. The context【C6】______a line is uttered can make a quote more notable, so as a control, the team【C7】______each classic quote with an ordinary one from the【C8】______context It was the same【C9】______and spoken by the same character at around the same point in the film. The computer analysed the pairs of quotes—around 2200 in total—for language【C10】______, unusual words, and word combinations. The computer【C11】______to recognize several characteristics【C12】______to the classic quotes, creating a model that could help find them. "The phrases contain【C13】______combinations of words, but at the same time they have a sentence structure that is common, so they are【C14】______to use," says Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil. The analysis also showed that classic lines often have a(n) 【C15】______: they can be widely used because they don"t contain words that【C16】______them to a specific context The model was able to【C17】______between classic and ordinary quotes with 64 percent accuracy. 【C18】______scored 78 percent The team【C19】______that political candidates could use the model to assess their【C20】______.

Search engine Google was aiming to float on Wall Street this week, valued at up to $36 billion. But the Internet company"s advisers are meeting this weekend to discuss possibly delaying the public listing after a sharp fall in share prices in New York on Friday. An insider said last night: "The float is teetering on the brink—it really is 50/50 at this stage, although many of us are optimistic." The initial public offering(IPO) of shares in Google, which could raise nearly $4bn, will amount to one of the biggest IPOs for years. But many US firms have shelved their IPOs amid volatile market conditions and investors appear unwilling to subscribe to new equity. A Wall Street analyst said that the Google IPO "would be a seminal event for the American stock market" as its real significance was that it would test whether or not the recovery in equity prices since the end of the Iraq war had taken hold. "If this float works, a lot of other companies will be encouraged and come to the market later in the year," the insider added. "But it will be bad news if the IPO is pulled or the shares fall sharply after the company is listed. If that happens, it could kill off the IPO market in America and elsewhere for at least 12 months." Several fund managers have already expressed reservations about Coogle, in particular its high valuation and the complex way the shares are being sold. Moreover the Google flotation is taking place at a time when technology companies in the US have been shunned. On Thursday, the IPO hit a technical hitch over the failure of the company to meet its legal obligations concerning its employees" stock option plans. But the company did not think that the disclosure would mean a delay to the IPO, which is due on Tuesday, At the top of the suggested price range, Google would be valued not far short of its rival Internet firm Yahoo!—and this has raised eyebrows within the industry. The auction is being conducted over the Internet, and potential buyers will have to register by signing on to a Google website. But only investors who have brokerage accounts with one of the 28 US banks and brokers underwriting the stock sale, will be able to apply. Google suffered a setback last month after it re ported an unexpected, slowdown in its huge growth rate. But sources close to Google"s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, said that the tailing-off of growth was due to seasonal factors and would not affect the IPO.

KnowingtheProblemsIsNotEnoughWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

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.

WhatQualitiesShouldaManagerHave?A.Studythechartcarefullyandwriteanessayof160-200words.B.Youressayshouldcoverthreepoints:1)thequalitiesanenterpriseexpectsmostfromitsmanagers2)possiblereasons3)youropinion

Yesterday you learnt in a newspaper advertisement that there is a job vacancy in a foreign owned company. What is being recruited is a secretary for the manager. Write a letter to its personnel department, 1) showing your intention for the position, 2) displaying your qualifications, 3) and expressing your inquiry about an job interview. Write your letter in no less than 100 words and write it neatly. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter, use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

The most thoroughly studied intellectuals in the history of the New World are the ministers and political leaders of seventeenth-century New England. According to the standard history of American philosophy, nowhere else in colonial America was "So much importance attached to intellectual pursuits."【F1】 According to many books and articles, New England"s leaders established the basic themes and preoccupations of an unfolding, dominant Puritan tradition in American intellectual life. 【F2】 To take this approach to the New Englanders normally means to start with the Puritans" theological innovations and their distinctive ideas about the church—important subjects that we may not neglect. But in keeping with our examination of southern intellectual life, we may consider the original Puritans as carriers of European culture, adjusting to New world circumstances. The New England colonies were the scenes of important episodes in the pursuit of widely understood ideals of civility and virtuosity. The early settlers of Massachusetts Bay included men of impressive education and influence in England. Besides the ninety or so learned ministers who came to Massachusetts churches in the decade after 1629, there were political leaders like John Winthrop, an educated gentleman, lawyer, and official of the Crown before he journeyed to Boston.【F3】 These men wrote and published extensively, reaching both New World and Old World audiences, and giving New England an atmosphere of intellectual earnestness. We should not forget , however, that most New Englanders were less well educated.【F4】 While few craftsmen or farmers, let alone dependents and servants, left literary compositions to be analyzed, it is obvious that their views were less fully intellectualized. Their thinking often had a traditional superstitious quality. A tailor named John Dane, who emigrated in the late 1630s, left an account of his reasons for leaving England that is filled with signs. Sexual confusion, economic frustrations, and religious hope—all came together in a decisive moment when he opened the Bible, told his father the first line he saw would settle his fate, and read the magical words: "come out from among them, touch no unclean thing, and I will be your God and you shall be my people." One wonders what Dane thought of the careful sermons explaining the Bible that he heard in puritan churches. 【F5】 Meanwhile, many settles had slighter religious commitments than Dane"s, as one clergyman learned in confronting folk along the coast who mocked that they had not come to the New world for religion. "Our main end was to catch fish."

BSection III Writing/B

Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. (46) But after the division of labor has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these with which a man"s own labor can supply him, the far greater part of them be must derive from the labor of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labor which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. (47) The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it is equal to the quantity of labor which it enables him to purchase or command. Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. (48) What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people. What is bought with money or with goods is purchased by labor, as much as what we acquire by the toil of our own body. That money or those goods indeed save us this toil. (49) They contain the value of a certain quantity of labor which we exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the value of an equal quantity. Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that as paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and (50) its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely to the quantity of labor which it can enable them to purchase or command. Wealth, as Mr. Hobbes says, is power. But the person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may, perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both, but the mere possession of that fortune does not necessarily convey to him either.

Nonverbal communication is hugely important in any interaction with others; its importance is multiplied across cultures. This is because we tend to look for nonverbal cues when verbal messages are unclear or ambiguous, as they are more likely to be across cultures. 【R1】______ Low-context cultures like the United States and Canada tend to give relatively less emphasis to nonverbal communication. This does not mean that nonverbal communication does not happen, or that it is unimportant, but that people in these settings tend to place less importance on it than on the literal meanings of words themselves. In high-context settings such as Japan or Colombia, understanding the nonverbal components of communication is relatively more important to receiving the intended meaning of the communication as a whole. 【R2】______For instance, it may be more socially acceptable in some settings in the United States for women to show fear, but not anger, and for men to display anger, but not fear. At the same time, interpretation of facial expressions across cultures is difficult. In China and Japan, for example, a facial expression that would be recognized around the world as conveying happiness may actually express anger or mask sadness, both of which are unacceptable to show overtly. 【R3】______For a Westerner who understands smiles to mean friendliness and happiness, this smile may seem out of place and even cold, under the circumstances. Even though some facial expressions may be similar across cultures, their interpretations remain culture-specific. It is important to understand something about cultural starting-points and values in order to interpret emotions expressed in cross-cultural interactions. 【R4】______In a comparison of North American and French children on a beach, a researcher noticed that the French children tended to stay in a relatively small space near their parents, while US children ranged up and down a large area of the beach. 【R5】______ These examples of differences related to nonverbal communication are only the tip of the iceberg. Careful observation, ongoing study from a variety of sources, and cultivating relationships across cultures will all help develop the cultural fluency to work effectively with nonverbal communication differences. [A]These differences of interpretation may lead to conflict. Suppose a Japanese person is explaining her absence from negotiations due to a death in her family. She may do so with a smile, based on her cultural belief that it is not appropriate to inflict the pain of grief on others. [B]Another variable across cultures has to do with ways of relating to space. Crossing cultures, we encounter very different ideas about polite space for conversations and negotiations. North Americans tend to prefer a large amount of space, perhaps because they are surrounded by it in their homes and countryside. Europeans tend to stand more closely with each other when talking, and are accustomed to smaller personal spaces. [C]Americans are serious about standing in lines, in accordance with their beliefs in democracy and the principle of "first come, first served" The French, on the other hand, have a practice of line jumping, that irritates many British and US Americans. [D]Since nonverbal behavior arises from our cultural common sense, we use different systems of understanding gestures, posture, silence, spatial relations, emotional expression, touch, physical appearance, and other nonverbal cues. Cultures also attribute different degrees of importance to verbal and nonverbal behavior. [E]The difficulty with space preferences is not that they exist, but the judgments that get attached to them. If someone is accustomed to standing or sitting very close when they are talking with another, they may see the other's attempt to create more space as evidence of coldness, or a lack of interest. [F]It is said that a German executive working in the United States became so upset with visitors to his office moving the guest chair to suit themselves that he had it bolted to the floor. [G]Some elements of nonverbal communication are consistent across cultures. For example, research has shown that the emotions of enjoyment, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise are expressed in similar ways by people around the world. Differences surface with respect to which emotions are acceptable to display in various cultural settings, and by whom.

On your way from Beijing to Paris, you lost your luggage carried by the airline. Write a complaint letter to the service center of the Airline. In your letter, you should tell them1) what happened to your luggage,2) what your luggage is like, and3) what compensation you expect.You should write about 100 words neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead.Do not write the address.

What we know of prenatal development makes all this attempt made by a mother to mold the character of her unborn child by studying poetry, art or mathematics during pregnancy seem utterly impossible. How could such extremely complex influences pass from the mother to the child? There is no connection between their nervous systems. Even the blood vessels of mother and child do not join directly. An emotional shock to the mother will affect her child, because it changes the activity of her glands and so the chemistry of her blood. Any chemical change in the mother"s blood will affect the child for better or worse. But we can not see how a liking for mathematics or poetic genius can be dissolved in blood and produce a similar liking or genius in the child. In our discussion of instincts we saw that there was reason to believe that whatever we inherit must be of some very simple sort rather than any complicated or very definite kind of behavior. It is certain that no one inherits a knowledge of mathematics. It may be, however, that children inherit more or less of a rather, general ability that we may call intelligence. If very intelligent children become deeply interested in mathematics, they will probably make a success of that study. As for musical ability, it may be that what is inherited if an especially sensitive ear, a peculiar structure of the hands or of the vocal organs connections between nerves and muscles that make it comparatively easy to learn the movements a musician must execute, and particularly vigorous emotions. If these factors are all organized around music the child may become a musician. The same factors, in other circumstance, might be organized about some other center of interest. The rich emotional equipment might find expression in poetry. The capable fingers might develop skill in surgery. It is not the knowledge of music that makes it comparatively easy to acquire musical knowledge and skill. Whether that ability shall be directed toward music or some other under taking may be decided entirely by forces in the environment in which a child grows up.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

EducationFeesWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

There are many superstitions in Britain, but one of the most 【C1】______held is that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder—even if it means【C2】______ the pavement into a busy street! 【C3】______you must pass under a ladder you can【C4】______bad luck by crossing your fingers and【C5】______them crossed until you have seen a dog. 【C6】______ , you may lick your finger and【C7】______a cross on the toe of your shoe, and not look again at the shoe until the 【C8】______ has dried. Another common【C9】______is that it is unlucky to open an umbrella in the house—it will either bring 【C10】______to the person who opened it or to the whole【C11】______. Anyone opening an umbrella in fine weather is【C12】______ , as it inevitably brings rain! The number 13 is said to be unlucky for some, and when the 13th day of the month 【C13】______on a Friday, anyone wishing to avoid a bad event had better stay 【C14】______. The worst misfortune that can happen to a person is caused by breaking a mirror, 【C15】______ it brings seven years of bad luck! The superstition is supposed to 【C16】______ in ancient times, when mirrors were considered to be tools of the gods. Black cats are generally considered lucky in Britain, even though they are 【C17】______witchcraft. It is 【C18】______ lucky if a black cat crosses your path—although in America the exact opposite belief prevails. Finally, a commonly held superstition is that of touching wood 【C19】______luck. This measure is most often taken if you think you have said something that is tempting fate, such as "my car has never 【C20】______, touch wood?

Suppose you received an invitation letter from Li Hua, and write a letter to accept the invitation. Your letter should include: 1) state your purpose, 2) express your feelings, and 3) give your gratitude. You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.(10 points)

[A] But as six years stretched to 10, then to 14, the anxiety of health officials gave way to astonishment. Although two of the recipients have died from other causes, not one of the man's contaminated blood has come down with AIDS. More telling still, the donor is also healthy. In fact his immune system remains as robust as if he had never tangled with HIV at all. What could explain such unexpected good fortune?[B] If this speculation proves right, it will mark a milestone in the battle to contain the late-20th century's most terrible epidemic. For in addition to explaining why this small group of people infected with HIV has not become sick, the discovery of a viral strain that works like a vaccine would have far-reaching implications. " What these results suggest," says Dr. Barney Graham of Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, "is that HIV is vulnerable and that it is possible to stimulate effective immunity against it.[C] The strain of HIV that was discovered in Sydney intrigues scientists because it contains striking abnormalities in a gene that is believed to stimulate viral duplication. In fact, the virus is missing so much of this particular gene-known as nef, for negative factor—that it is hard to imagine how the gene could perform any useful function. And sure enough, while the Sydney virus retains the ability to infect T cells—-white blood cells that are critical to the immune system's ability to ward off infection—it makes so few copies of itself that the most powerful molecular tools can barely detect its presence.[D] At the very least, the nef gene offers an attractive target for drug developers. If its activity can be blocked, suggests Deacon, researchers might be able to bring the progression of disease under control, even in people who have developed full-blown AIDS. The need for better AIDS-fighting drugs was underscored last week by the actions of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel, which recommended speedy approval of two new AIDS drugs. Although FDA commissioner David Kessler was quick to praise the new drugs, neither medication can prevent or cure AIDS once it has taken hold. What scientists really want is a vaccine that can prevent infection altogether. And that's what makes the Sydney virus so promising—and so controversial.[E] A team of Australian scientists has finally solved the mystery. The virus that the donor contracted and then passed on, the team reported last week in the journal Science, contains flaws in its genetic script that appear to have rendered it harmless. "Not only have the recipients and the donor not progressed to disease for 15 years," marvels molecular biologist Nicholas Deacon ofAustralia's Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, "but the prediction is that they never will." Deacon speculates that this "impotent" HIV may even be a natural inoculant that protects its carriers against more virulent strains of the virus.[F] But few scientists are enthusiastic about testing the proposition by injecting HIV—however weakened—into millions of people who have never been infected. After all, they note, HIV is a retrovirus, a class of infectious agents known for their alarming ability to integrate their own genes into the DNA of the cells they infect. Thus once it takes effect, a retrovirus infection is permanent.[G] About 15 years ago, a well-meaning man donated blood to the Red Cross in Sydney, Australia, not knowing he has been exposed to HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. Much later, public health officials learned that some of the people who got transfusions containing his blood had become infected with the same virus; presumably they were almost sure to die.G→【C1】______→【C2】______→【C3】______→【C4】______→【C5】______→F

The country's inadequate mental health system gets the most attention after instances of mass violence that the nation has seen repeatedly over the past few months. Not all who 【B1】______ these sorts of cruelties are mentally ill, but 【B2】______ have been. After each, the national discussion quickly, but temporarily, turns toward the mental health services that may have 【B3】______ to prevent another attack. Mental illness usually is not as dangerous or dramatic. 【B4】______ 23 million Americans live with mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Very few of these men and women are【B5】______mass-murderers; they need help for their own well-being and for that of their【B6】______. The Affordable Care Act has significantly increased insurance coverage 【B7】______ mental health care. But that may not be enough to expand 【B8】______ to insufficient mental-health-care resources. Rep. Tim Murphy has a bill that would do so. The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act is more 【B9】______ than other recent efforts to reform the system and perhaps has the brightest prospects in a divided Congress. The【B10】______would reorganize the billions the federal government pours into mental health services. It would【B11】______the way Medicaid pays for certain mental health treatments. It would fund mental health clinics that【B12】______certain medical standards. And it would【B13】______states to adopt policies that allow judges to order some severely mentally ill people to undergo treatment. Not everyone is satisfied. Some patients' advocates have【B14】______Mr. Murphy's approach as coercive and【B15】______to those who need help. The government should not be expanding the system' s capability to hospitalize or impose treatment on those【B16】______severe episodes, they say. It should instead be investing in community care that【B17】______the need for more serious treatment.【B18】______, for a small class who will not accept treatment between hospital visits or repeat arrests, they say, states have good reason to【B19】______them to accept care, under judicial supervision. Mr. Murphy's reform package may not prevent the next Sandy Hook.【B20】______the changes would help relieve a lot of suffering that does not make the front page.