On the morning of April 15, 38,500 worshippers from all over the world will descend upon the tiny town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts. In a bizarre rite they will shed most of their clothes, spread petroleum jelly over the more sensitive parts of their bodies and affix little time-keepers to their shoelaces. Then, as the appointed hour of noon approaches, they will either stand in line at one of the 750 portable toilets or, much to the chagrin of Hopkinton"s 10,000 regular residents, go natural. At the report from a gun, they will try to race 26 miles, 385 yards, all the way to Boston. In other words, they will "run Boston". And not just any "Boston". This will be the 100th Boston Marathon. The sign in Hopkinton Green that commemorates the marathon reads WELCOME TO HOPKINTON. IT ALL STARTS HERE. Actually, it all started down the road in Ashland on Patriots" Day April 19,1897, when 15 men from the Boston area and New York City entered the first Boston Athletic Association Marathon. A 22-year-old lithographer from New York named John McDermott won the race, though not easily. A few miles from the finish McDermott had to stop because of intense leg cramps. Fortunately, he had an attendant who answered McDermott"s command, "Rub!" and he crossed the finish line in 2:55:10—which would have been good enough for683rd place in last year"s Boston Marathon. Times have changed, of course. The road to Boston is now paved. The leather shoes that McDermott wore gave way to canvas sneakers that gave way to leather shoes. The start was moved from Ashland to Hopkinton in 1924 in order to lengthen the course to the classic marathon distance. And in recent years, the traditional post-marathon beef stew served by the BAA has been replaced by a pre-marathon pasta party sponsored by Ronzoni. But from the beginning, Boston has been immensely popular: the seventh running of the marathon in 1903 attracted 200,000 spectators. This year an estimated 1.5 million will cheer the runners on as they move from Hopkinton to Ashland to Framingham to Natick to Wellesley to... "Its obvious strength is 100 years of the best runners in the world," says Bill Rodgers, the folk hero who has won Boston four times. "But it is also the best course anywhere. You run through small towns on your way to Boston. You really have a sense of making progress." If Boston has a patron saint, it is John A. Kelley, who first ran the race in 1928 when he was 20 and last ran the race in 1992 when ha was 84. In 1935 Kelley, who was then a floral assistant outdueled toolmaker Pat Dengis, eliciting this response from Dengis: "Would you imagine this, a florist runs 26 miles for a laurel wreath!" Though he received a police escort home to Arlington, Massachusetts, and a telegram from the Governor, Kelley was back at work the next day, preparing Easter lilies at Anderson"s Florist Shop. He also won in 1945 at the advanced age of 37 and told a reporter, "Life merely begins at 40, and I have three years to go." Kelley no longer runs in the marathon, but runners can still pass him on Heartbreak Hill in Newton, where there are twin statues of Kelley—as he ran in his first victory and as he ran in his 61st Boston.

A wise man once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. So, as a police officer, I have some urgent things to say to good people. Day after day my men and I struggle to hold back a tidal wave of crime. Something has gone terribly wrong with our once-proud American way of life. It has happened in the area of values. A key ingredient is disappearing, and I think I know what it is: accountability. Accountability isn"t hard to define. It means that every person is responsible for his or her actions and liable for their consequences. Of the many values that hold civilization together—honesty, kindness, and so on-accountability may be the most important of all. Without it, there can be no respect, no trust, no law—and ultimately, no society. My job as a police officer is to impose accountability on people who refuse, or have never learned, to impose it on themselves. But as every policeman knows, external controls on people"s behavior are far less effective than internal restraints such as guilt, shame and embarrassment. Fortunately, there are still communities—smaller towns, usually—where schools maintain discipline and where parents hold up standards that proclaim, In this family certain things are not tolerated—they simply are not done!" Yet more and more, especially in our larger cities and suburbs, these inner restraints are loosening. Your typical robber has none, he considers your property his property; he takes what he wants, including your life if you enrage hint. The main cause of this break-down is a radical shift in attitudes. Thirty years ago, if a crime was committed, society was considered the victim. Now, in a shocking reversal, it"s the criminal who is considered victimized: by his underprivileged upbringing, by the school that didn"t teach him to read, by the church that failed to reach him with moral guidance, by the parents who didn"t provide a stable home. I don"t believe it. Many others in equally disadvantaged circumstances choose not to engage in criminal activities. If we free the criminal, even partly, from accountability, we become a society of endless excuses where no one accepts responsibility for anything. We in America desperately need more people who believe that the person who commits a crime is the one responsible for it.

After their 20-year-old son hanged himself during his winter break from the University of Arizona five years ago, Donna and Phil Satow wondered what signs they had overlooked, and started asking" other students for answers. What grew from this soul searching was Ulifeline (www.ulifeline.org), a website where students can get answers to questions about depression by logging on through their universities. The site has been adopted as a resource by over 120 colleges, which can customize it with local information, and over 1.3 million students have logged on with their college ID"s. "It"s a very solid website that raises awareness of suicide, de-stigmatizes mental illness and encourages people to seek the help they need", said Paul Grayson, the director of counseling services at New York University, which started using the service nearly a year ago. The main component of the website is the Self-E-Valuator, a self-screening program developed by Duke University Medical Center that tests students to determine whether they are at risk for depression, suicide and disorders like anorexia and drug dependence. Besides helping students, the service compiles anonymous student data, offering administrators an important window onto the mental health of its campus. The site provides university users with links to local mental health services, a catalog of information on prescription drugs and side effects, and access to Go Ask Alice, a vast archive developed by Columbia University with hundreds of responses to anonymously posted inquiries from college students worldwide. For students concerned about their friends, there is a section that describes warning signs for suicidal behavior and depression. Yet it is hard to determine how effective the service is. The anonymity of the online service can even play out as a negative. "There is no substitute for personal interaction(个人互动才能解决)", said Dr. Lanny Berman, executive director of the American Association of Suicidology, based in Washington. Ulifeline would be the first to say that its service is no replacement for an actual therapist. "The purpose is to find out if there are signs of depression and then direct people to the right places", said Ron Gibori, executive director of Ulifeline. Mrs. Satow, who is still involved with Ulifeline, called it "a knowledge base" that might have prevented the death of her son, Jed. "If Jed"s friends had known the signs of depression, they might have seen something", she said.

At no time and under no circumstances will China be first to use or menace to use nuclear weapons.

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

I am one of the many city people who are always saying that given the choice we would prefer to live in the country away from the dirt and noise of a large city. I have managed to convince myself that if it weren"t for my job I would immediately head out for the open spaces and go back to nature in some sleepy village buried in the country. But how realistic is the dream? Cities can be frightening places. The majority of the population lives in massive tower blocks, noisy, dirty and impersonal. The sense of belonging to a community tends to disappear when you live fifteen floors up. All you can see from your window is sky, or other blocks of flats. Children become aggressive and nervous—cooped up at home all day, with nowhere to play; their mothers feel isolated from the rest of the world. Strangely enough, whereas in the past the inhabitants of one street all knew each other, nowadays people on the same floor in tower blocks don"t even say hello to each other. Country life, on the other hand, differs from this kind of isolated existence in that a sense of community generally binds the inhabitants of small villages together. People have the advantage of knowing that there is always someone to turn to when they need help. But country life has disadvantages too. While it is true that you may be among friends in a village, it is also true that you are cut off from the exciting and important events that take place in cities. There"s little possibility of going to a new show or the latest movie. Shopping becomes a major problem, and for anything slightly out of the ordinary you have to go on an expedition to the nearest large town. The city-dweller who leaves for the country is often oppressed by a sense of unbearable stillness and quietness. What, then, is the answer? The country has the advantage of peace and quiet, but suffers from the disadvantage of being cut off; the city breeds a feeling of isolation, and constant noise batters the senses. But one of its main advantages is that you are at the centre of things; and that life doesn"t come to an end at half past nine at night. Some people have found (or rather bought) a compromise between the two: they have expressed their preference for the "quiet life" by leaving the suburbs and moving to villages within commuting distance of large cities. They generally have about as much sensitivity as the plastic flowers they leave behind—they are polluted with strange ideas about change and improvement which they force on to the unwilling original inhabitants of the village. What then of my dreams of leaning on a cottage gate and murmuring "morning" to the locals as they pass by? I"m keen on the idea, but you see there"s my cat, Toby. I"m not at all sure that he would take to all that fresh air and exercise in the long grass. I mean, can you see him mixing with all those hearty males down the farm? No, he would rather have the electric imitation-coal fire any evening.

On Mar. 14, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced its first foray into Japan, the Bentonville (Ark.) retailing giant placed a big bet that it could succeed where countless other foreign companies have failed. In the past five years, a number of famous Western brands have been forced to close up shop after failing to Catch on in Japan, one of the world"s largest—but most variable—consumer markets. May Wal-Mart make a go of it where others have stumbled? One good sign is that the mass marketer is not rushing in blindly. It has taken an initial 6.1% stake in ailing food-and-clothing chain Seiyu Ltd., which it can raise to a controlling 33.4% by yearend and to 66.7% by 2007. That gives Wal-Mart time to revise its strategy—or run for the exits. The question is whether Wal-Mart can apply the lessons it has learned in other parts of Asia to Japan. This, after all, is a nation of notoriously finicky consumers—who have become even more so since Japan slipped into a decade long slump. How will Wal-Mart bring to bear its legendary cost-cutting savvy in a market already affected by falling prices? Analysts are understandably skeptical. "It is uncertain whether Wal-Mart"s business models will be effective in Japan", Standard & Poor"s said in a Mar. 18 report. Much depends on whether Seiyu turns out to be a good partner. The 39-year-old retailer is a member of the reputed Seibu Saison retail group that fell on hard times in the early "90s. It also has deep ties to trading house Sumitomo Corp., which will take a 15% stake in the venture with Wal-Mart. Perhaps the best thing that can be said of Seiyu"s 400-odd stores is that they"re not as deeply troubled as other local retailers. Still, there"s a gaping chasm between the two corporate cultures. "We"ve never been known for cheap everyday pricing", says a Seiyu spokesman. Another potential problem is Sumitomo, which may not want to lean on suppliers to the extent that Wal-Mart routinely does. The clock is ticking. Wal-Mart executives say they need several months to "study" the deal with Seiyu before acting on it, but in the meantime a new wave of hyper-competitive Japanese and foreign rivals are carving up the market. If Wal-Mart succeeds, it will reduce its reliance on its home market even further and—who knows?—it may even revolutionize Japanese retailing in the same way it has in the U.S.

Who Should Teach Children: Parents or School?

TheWaytoOuterSpaceWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Studythepictureabovecarefullyandwriteanessayentitled"OntheInterpersonalRelationshipinthemodernWorld".Intheessay,youshould(1)describethepicture;(2)interpretitsmeaning;(3)giveyouropinionaboutthephenomenon.Youshouldwriteabout200wordsneatly.

When Dr. John W. Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California and a leading nuclear critic, speaks of "ecocide" in his adversary view of nuclear technology, he means the following: A large nuclear plant like that in Kalkar, the Netherlands, would produce about 200 pounds of plutonium each year. One pound, released into the atmosphere, could cause 9 billion cases of lung cancer. This waste product must be stored for 500,000 years before it is of no further danger to man. In the anticipated reactor economy, it is estimated that there will be 10,000 tons of this material in western Europe, of which one table—spoonful of plutonium—239 represents the official maximum permissible body burden for 200,000 people. Rather than being biodegradable, plutonium destroys biological properties. In 1972 the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled that the asbestos level in the work place should be lowered to 2 fibers per cubic centimeter of air, but the effective date of the ruling has been delayed until now. The International Federation of Chemical and General Workers" Unions report that the 2-fiber standard was based primarily on one study of 290 men at a British asbestos factory. But when the workers at the British factory had been reexamined by another physician, 40-70 percent had X-ray evidence of lung abnormalities. According to present medical information at the factory in question, out of a total of 29 deaths thus far, seven were caused by lung cancer. An average European or American worker comes into contact with six million fibers a day. "We are now, in fact, finding cancer deaths within the family of the asbestos worker," states Dr. Irving Selikoff, of the Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. It is now also clear that vinyl chloride, a gas from which the most widely used plastics are made, causes a fatal cancer of the blood-vessel ceils of the liver. However, the history of the research on vinyl chloride is, in some ways, more disturbing than the "Watergate cover-up". "There has been evidence of potentially serious disease among polyvinyl chloride workers for 25 years that has been incompletely appreciated and inadequately approached by medical scientists and by regulatory authorities," summed up Dr. Selikoff in the New Scientist. At least 17 workers have been killed by vinyl chloride because research over the past 25 years was not followed up. And for over 10 years, workers have been exposed to concentrations of vinyl chloride 10 times the "safe limit" imposed by Dow Chemical Company.Notes:plutonium 钚asbestos 石棉polyvinyl chloride 聚氯乙烯

Teachers grumble over pay everywhere, but in West Virginia Wesleyan College the anger is a cute. Salaries here have barely moved since 2000, and the average assistant professor"s pay has fallen below that at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. On a campus with just 86 full-time faculty, a sociology professor said, a few hundred thousand dollars more spent on teaching could make a real difference. Wesleyan President William Haden says the college plans to raise faculty pay. But he says Wesleyan is nothing without students—"they vote with their feet"—and the college has no choice but to address their wants and needs. He says technology has been a big part of that, and some recent graduates agree that it"s valuable—though maybe not essential. Daniel Simmons, a 1999 graduate and also a middle-school teacher, praised the technology program. "If I had gone to another school it wouldn"t have been available to me," he said. "It was very convenient and it was top of the line." But as with the faculty, the quality of human instructors is a big concern among Wesleyan alumni. "A little bit more money should have been put into keeping people," said Evan Keeling, a 2002 graduate now pursuing a doctorate at the University of Virginia. He found the quality in the classroom uneven, and, notably, neither he nor the Daniel Simmons came to Wesleyan because of technology. The program was a bonus, not the primary draw. Skinner, the director of admission and financial planning, acknowledged that seems widely true. Prospective students pay more attention to more tangible signs of growth. "It did open some doors for us, but would I have liked to have had a new residence hall or recreational facility? I probably would have preferred that," Skinner said. His daily struggle remains filling the freshman class, which may be down 50 people or more this year, due to changes in government financial aid programs and the shuttering of the nursing program. The college still accepts about 80 percent of its applicants, and no longer requires online applications. Haden acknowledges that, with the benefit of hindsight, he might have handled details of how the program was financed differently. But he makes no apologies for taking bold steps which he says have indeed set Wesleyan apart. "We needed to make a statement about our commitment to technology and our belief that it would enhance the quality of education and the preparation of our students," he said." "And I"m still believing that."

September 11th 2001 drew the transatlantic alliance together; but the mood did not last, and over the five years since it has pulled ever further apart. A recent poll for the German Marshall Fund shows that 57% of Europeans regard American leadership in world affairs as "undesirable". The Iraq war is mainly to blame. But there is another and more intractable reason for the growing division: God. Europeans worry that American foreign policy under George Bush is too influenced by religion. The "holy warriors" who hijacked the planes on September 11th reintroduced God into international affairs in the most dramatic of ways. It seems that George Bush is replying in kind, encouraging a clash of religions that could spell global catastrophe. Dominique Moisi, a special adviser at the French Institute for International Relations, argues that "the combination of religion and nationalism in America is frightening. We feel betrayed by God and by nationalism, which is why we are building the European Union as a barrier to religious warfare". Josef Braml, of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, complains that in America "religious attitudes have more of an influence on political choices than in any other western democracy". The notion that America is too influenced by religion is not confined to the elites. Three in five French people and nearly as many Dutch think that Americans are too religious-and that religion skews what should be secular decisions. Europeans who think that America is "too religious" are more inclined to anti-Americanism than their fellow countrymen. 38% of Britons have an unfavourable view of America, but that number rises to 50% among people who are wary of American religiosity. Is America engaged in a faith-based foreign policy? Religion certainly exerts a growing influence on its actions in the world, but in ways more subtle and complicated than Europeans imagine. It is true that America is undergoing a religious revival. "Hot" religions such as evangelical Protestantism and hardline Catholicism are growing rapidly while "cool" mainline versions of Christianity are declining. It is also true that the Republican Party, is being reshaped by this revival. Self-identified evangelicals provided almost 40% of Mr. Bushes vote in 2004; if you add in other theological conservatives, such as Mormons and traditional Catholics, that number rises closer to 60%. All six top Republican leaders in the Senate have earned 100K ratings from the Christian Coalition. It is also true that Mr. Bush frequently uses religious rhetoric when talking of foreign affairs. On September 12th he was at it again, telling a group of conservative journalists that he sees the war on terror as "a confrontation between good and evil", and remarking, "It seems to me that there"s a Third Awakening" (in other words, an outbreak of Christian evangelical fervour, of the sort that has swept across America at least twice before). And Christian America overall is taking a bigger interest in foreign policy. New voices are being heard, such as Sam Brownback, a conservative senator from Kansas who has led the fight against genocide in Darfur, and Rick Warren, the author of a bestseller called "The Purpose-Driven Life", who is sending 2,000 missionaries to Rwanda. Finally, it is true that religious figures have done some pretty outrageous things. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Hugo Chvez, the president of Venezuela. Lieutenant-General William "Jerry" Boykin, deputy under-secretary of defence for intelligence, toured the country telling Christian groups that radical Muslims hate America "because we"re a Christian nation and the enemy is a guy named Satan". He often wore uniform.

Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayto1)describethepicture,2)deducethepurposeofthepainterofthepicture,3)giveyoursuggestionsastohowtocooperateinharmony.Youshouldwriteabout160—200wordsneatly.

The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-G. Some of the paragraphs have been placed for you. (10 points)A. The first category consists of substantial payments for political purpose or to secure major contracts. For example, the U.S. conglomerate YIT (International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation) offered a large sum of money in support of a U.S. presidential candidate at a time when it was under investigation for possible violations of the U.S. anti-trust law. This same company, it was revealed, was ready to finance efforts to overthrow the Marxist government of Chile whose President was Salvadore Allende.B. The second category covers payments made to obtain quicker official approval of some project, to speed up the wheels of bureaucracy. An interesting example of this kind of payment is provided by the story of a sales manager who had been trying for some months to sell road machinery to the Minister of Works of a Caribbean country. Finally, he hit upon the answer. Discovering that the minister was a bibliophile, he bought a rare edition of a book, slipped $20,000 within its pages, then presented it to the minister. This man examined its contents, then said: "I understand there is a two-volume edition of this work." This sales manager, who was quick-witted, replied: "My company cannot afford a two-volume edition, sir, but we could offer you a copy with an appendix!" A short time later, the deal was approved.C. In this category, we may also include large payments made to ruling families or their close advisers in order to secure arms sales or major petrochemical and construction contracts. In a court case involving an arms deal with Iran, a witness claimed that ￡1 million had been paid by a British company to a "go between" who helped clinch a deal for supply of tanks to that country. Other countries have also been known to put pressure on foreign companies to make donation to party funds.D. It is difficult to resist the impression that bribery and other questionable payments are on the increase. Indeed, they seem to have become a fact of commercial life. To take just one example, the Chrysler Corporation, third largest of the U.S. motor manufacturers, disclosed that it made questionable payments of more than $2.5 million between 1971 and 1976. By making this revelation, it joined more than 300 U.S. companies that had admitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they had made dubious payments of one kind or another—bribes, facilitating payments, extra discounts, etc.—in recent years. For discussion purposes, we can divide these payments into three broad categories.E. Students taking business course are sometimes a little surprised to find that lectures on business ethics have been included in their syllabuses of study. They often do not realize that, later in their careers, they may be tempted to bend their principles to get what they want; perhaps also they are not fully aware that bribery in various forms is on the increase in many countries and, in some, this type of corruption has been a way of life for centuries.F. It is easy to talk about having high moral standards but, in practice, what would one really do in such a situation7 Some time ago the British car manufacturer, British Leyhand, was accused of operating a "slush fund", and of other questionable practices such as paying agents and purchasers with padded commission, offering additional discounts and making payments to numbered bank accounts in Switzerland. The company rejected these allegations and they were later withdrawn. Nevertheless, at this time, there were people in the motor industry in Britain who were prepared to say in private: "Look; we"re in a wheeling-dealing business. Every year we"re selling more than a 1,000 million worth of cars abroad. If we spend a few million greasing the palms of some of the buyers, who"s hurt? If we didn"t do it, someone else would."G. In dealing with the topics of business ethics, some lecturers ask students how they would act in the following situation: suppose you were head of a major soft-drinks company and you want to break into a certain overseas market where the growth potential for your company is likely to be very great indeed. During negotiations with government officials of this country, the Minister of Trade makes it clear to you that if you offer him a substantial bribe, you will find it much easier to get an import license for your goods, and you are also likely to avoid" bureaucratic delays", as he puts it. Now, the question is: do you pay up or stand by your principles?Order: G is the second paragraph, and C is the sixth one.

You are going to read a text about basic element in both speaking and writing, followed by a list of examples and explanations. Choose the best example or explanation from the list for each numbered subheading. There is one extra example which you do not need to use. There are many differences between communicating in written and spoken words—one to one or one to many. Because speaking is face to face and personal, it is much more direct than writing.. Hand and body gestures, facial expressions, and vocal variety help greatly to support face-to-face communication. It is also reinforced by instant feedback from listeners in the form of smiles, frowns, applause, catcalls, clenched fists, and so on. An alert speaker who is sensitive to feedback can "shift gears" and adapt to changing circumstances. (41) The differences between talking and writing Writing, however, depends solely on words and punctuation to deliver the message. There are no gestures and no voice, and if there is any feedback, it takes time to reach the writer. (42) Why long sentences can be used in writing? Effective talking is aimed at people"s minds and hearts through their ears, and ears prefer short, direct, conversational sentences. There are three standards that apply equally to talking and writing—clarity, accuracy, and appropriateness. (43) Clarity. If the audience doesn"t understand the message instantly, then the speaker has, to some extent, failed. Thus, every possible measure must be taken to ensure that all your words and thoughts are perfectly clear to the audience. (44) Accuracy. As a conscientious speaker, you must see to it that your information is as current and as accurate as research can make it. (45) Appropriateness. In addition to being precise, your language should also be suitable to the subject, audience, and occasion.A. For instance, a speaker can vary his/her pitch or tone to change the meaning expressed. A writer, on the other hand, has to rely solely on the words and context or even explanations in braces to achieve that.B. Good talking is wordy, repetitive, and far less structured than efficient writing. A good speech, reproduced word for word on paper, usually does not read well because it rambles and repeats words and thoughts. It is not nearly as disciplined and organized as good writing.C. Throughout your talk, words are your prime means for helping your audience understand your message. And to harness the profound power of words, you should develop a lifelong habit of using a dictionary and a thesaurus. If you do not exploit these resources, you will fail to achieve your full potential as a speaker and conversationalist. Another device that will help you achieve clarity in your talk is a summary. If your talk consists of three will researched major points, lit those points in your introduction so your audience will know at once what ground you will cover. Discuss them in depth, summarize them at the end of your talk, and emphasize any conclusions hat they lead to.D. For example, a speaker who"s addressing a Parent-Teacher Association should avoid the statistical and psychological jargon of advanced educational researchers. By the same token, she should not indulge in teenage slang. Any speaker worth her salt will analyze her audience first and adapt her language accordingly.E. The surest way for you to damage your credibility is to spew forth misinformation or outdated information. How many times have you seen a story, a name, an important fact, or a charge against someone retracted in newspapers? Unfortunately, the damage was done when the misinformation first appeared in print. Such unwarranted embarrassment and mental anguish could have been avoided ff someone had taken the time to recheck the information. If your talk is on a current or crucial topic, do your homework and arm yourself with quotations and sources to fortify your facts.F. Long, involved sentences are acceptable in writing for two reasons: 1) The eye can absorb many more words in an instant than the ear can hear. 2) If a reader stumbles on a marathon sentence, she can read it again. Not so with spoken words—once uttered they"re gone, especially in speech. If a listener misses a sentence, both she and the speaker have lost part of the message; there is no going back, except perhaps during the question-and-answer period. In a conversation, of course, the listener can ask the speaker to repeat.

Robert F. Kennedy once said that a country' s GDP measures " everything except that which makes life worthwhile". With Britain voting to leave the European Union, and GDP already predicted to slow as a result, it is now a timely moment to assess what he was referring to. The question of GDP and its usefulness has annoyed policymakers for over half a century. Many argue that it is a flawed concept. It measures things that do not matter and misses things that do. By most recent measures, the UK' s GDP has been the envy of the Western world, with record low unemployment and high growth figures. If everything was going so well, then why did over 17 million people vote for Brexit, despite the warnings about what it could do to their country' s economic prospects? A recent annual study of countries and their ability to convert growth into well-being sheds some light on that question. Across the 163 countries measured, the UK is one of the poorest performers in ensuring that economic growth is translated into meaningful improvements for its citizens. Rather than just focusing on GDP, over 40 different sets of criteria from health, education and civil society engagement have been measured to get a more rounded assessment of how countries are performing. While all of these countries face their own challenges, there are a number of consistent themes. Yes, there has been a budding economic recovery since the 2008 global crash, but in key indicators in areas such as health and education, major economies have continued to decline. Yet this isn' t the case with all countries. Some relatively poor European countries have seen huge improvements across measures including civil society, income equality and environment. This is a lesson that rich countries can learn: When GDP is no longer regarded as the sole measure of a country' s success, the world looks very different. So what Kennedy was referring to was that while GDP has been the most common method for measuring the economic activity of nations, as a measure, it is no longer enough. It does not include important factors such as environmental quality or education outcomes—all things that contribute to a person' s sense of well-being. The sharp hit to growth predicted around the world and in the UK could lead to a decline in the everyday services we depend on for our well-being and for growth. But policymakers who refocus efforts on improving well-being rather than simply worrying about GDP figures could avoid the forecasted doom and may even see progress.

There's nothing simple about gun control, a tangle of legal, political and public-health issues complicated by cultural preferences and regional biases. Passions run high on all sides. Lifelong hunters who grew up with firearms, urban victims of gun violence, Second Amendment scholars, NRA lobbyists , chiefs of police—they've all got cases to make and they make them well, often contentiously. For the past 15 years, much of the debate has centered on the effectiveness of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the federal gun-control bill that was passed in 1993. Critics say the focus on law abiding gun buyers doesn't address the real issue—bad guys who acquire their weapons illegally. Supporters say that the bill stops thousands of illegal gun purchases and deters crime and violence. Now medical research has come to the rescue, sifting through the data to figure out which legal measures work best to reduce firearm suicides and homicides. In a paper published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Steven Sumner, a third-year med student and Dr. Peter Layde, co-director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, found that local background checks, which are optional and used by just a handful of states, were more effective than the federal background checks mandated by the Brady law. The report compared the homicide and suicide rates in states that perform only federal checks with states that do state-level checks and those that perform local-level checks. The local-level checks were associated with a 27 percent lower firearm suicide rate and a 22 percent lower homicide rate among adults 21 and older, the legal age to purchase a gun. Why are local checks so much better? "We hypothesize that it's due to access to additional information that's not available at the federal checks." says Layde, "particularly related to mental-health issues and domestic-violence issues." All 50 states use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the minimum-required under Brady, while 17 states also perform state-level checks and 12 do additional local-level checks. "This is the first study that's looked at this issue." says Layde. "If the magnitude of impact we found were in fact to apply to all 50 states, you would expect a very substantial reduction in suicides and homicides linked to firearms, many thousands." However, background checks can be both an administrative and a cost burden for strapped and stretched local authorities. There is another way to get the same results: improve the flow of local information to the MCS databases. "In an ideal world," says Layde, "you might not have to have the local agencies involved if you just reliably got all the data they had up to the federal level."

The translator must have an excellent, up-to-date knowledge of his source languages, full【C1】______in the handling of his target language, which will be his mother tongue or language of【C2】______use, and a knowledge and understanding of the【C3】______subject-matter in his field of specialization. This is, as it were, his professional equipment.【C4】______this, it is desirable that he should have an【C5】______mind, wide interests, a good memory and the ability to【C6】______quickly the basic principles of new developments. He should be willing to work【C7】______his own, often at high speeds, but should be humble enough to consult others【C8】______his own knowledge not always prove【C9】______to the task in hand. He should be able to type fairly quickly and accurately and, if he is working mainly for publication, should have more than a nodding【C10】______with printing techniques and proofreading. If he is working basically as an information translator, let us say, for an industrial firm, he should have the flexibility of mind to enable him to【C11】______rapidly from one source language to another, as well as from one subject-matter to another,【C12】______this ability is frequently【C13】______of him in such work. Bearing in mind the nature of the translator"s work, i.e. the processing of the written word, it is, strictly speaking,【C14】______that he should be able to speak the languages he is dealing with. If he does speak them, it is an advantage【C15】______a hindrance, but this skill is in many ways a luxury that he can do away with. It is,【C16】______, desirable that he should have an approximate idea about the pronunciation of his source languages【C17】______this is restricted to knowing how proper names and place names are pronounced. The same【C18】______to an ability to write his source languages. If he can, well and good; if he cannot, it does not【C19】______. There are many other skills and【C20】______that are desirable in a translator.

Title: Copyright on the Internet Outline: the present state, reasons, and solutions You should write about 160—200 words neatly.