For centuries in Spain and Latin America, heading home for lunch and a snooze with the family was some thing like a national right, but with global capitalism standardizing work hours, this idyllic habit is fast becoming an endangered pleasure. Ironically, all this is happening just as researchers are beginning to note the health benefits of the afternoon nap. According to a nationwide survey, less than 25 percent of Spaniards still enjoy siestas. And like Spain, much of Latin America has adopted Americanized work schedules, too, with shortened lunch times and more rigid work hours. Last year the Mexican government passed a law limiting lunch breaks to one hour and requiring its employees to work their eight-hour shift between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.. Before the mandate , workers would break up the shift—going home midday for a long break with the family and returning to work until about 9 or 10 p.m.. The idea of siesta is changing in Greece, Italy and Portugal, too, as they rush to join their more "industrious" counterparts in the global market. Most Americans I know covet sleep, but the idea of taking a nap mid-afternoon equates with laziness, un employment and general sneakiness. Yet according to a National Sleep Survey poll, 65 percent of adults do not get enough sleep. Numerous scientific studies document the benefits of nap taking, including one 1997 study on the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation in the journal Internal Medicine. The researchers found that fatigue harms not only marital and social relations but worker productivity. According to Mark Rosekind, a former NASA scientist and founder of Solutions in Cupertino, Calif., which educates businesses about the advantages of sanctioning naps, we're biologically programmed to get sleepy between 3 and 5 p.m. and 3 and 5 a.m.. Our internal timekeeper—called the circadian clock—operates on a 24-hour rotation and every 12 hours there' s a dip. In accordance with these natural sleep rhythms, Rosekind recommends that naps be either for 40 minutes or for two hours. Latin American countries, asserts Rosekind, have had it right all along. They've been in sync with their clocks; we haven't. Since most of the world is sleep-deprived, getting well under the recommended eight hours a night(adults get an average of 6. 5 hours nightly), we usually operate on a kind of idle midday. Naps are even more useful now that most of us forfeit sleep because of insane work schedules, longer commute times and stress, In a study published last April, Brazilian medical researchers noted that blood pressure and arterial blood pressure dropped during a siesta.

Time was when the solar system had two watery worlds. (46) Directly next door to the warm. wet, loamy Earth was the warm, wet, loamy Mars, both planets covered with oceans and running with rivers-and both possibly teeming with life. Billions of years ago, however, the low-gravity Mars had both its air and water leak away, causing the planet to become the dead, freeze-dried place it is today. That is what the prevailing thinking has been. Now, it appears that thinking may be wrong. (47) Recently, NASA released new images from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft that suggest water may be flowing up and streaming onto the Martian surface-dramatically increasing the likelihood that at least part of the planet is biologically alive. "If these results prove true," says Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA"s Office of Space Science, "they have profound implications for the possibility of life." Finding liquid water on Mars" surface has never been easy-because it simply can"t exist there. The modern-day Martian atmosphere has barely 1 percent the density of Earth"s, and its average temperature hovers around-67 degrees Fahrenheit (-19 degrees Centigrade). In an environment as harsh as this, water would either vaporize into space or simply flash-freeze in place. (48) Scientists studying Martian history have always looked for clues the planet"s ancient water left behind-tracks where vanished rivers once flowed, basins where vanished seas once stood. (49) The approximately 65,000 images the Surveyor orbiter has beamed home in the nearly three years it has been circling Mars are full of this kind of expected hydro-scarring. But some of the pictures took scientists by surprise. The older a formation is, the more likely it is to have been distorted over the eons-smoothed by periodic windstorms or gouged by the occasional incoming meteor. However, a few of the newly discovered water channels look fresh. That discovery has lead astonished researchers to conclude that these channels may have been recently formed. (50) Planetologists have long assumed that if underground water was going to bubble up on Mars, it would have to be somewhere in the balmy equatorial zones: where temperatures at noon in midsummer may reach 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Centigrade). Almost all the new channels, however, were discovered at the planet"s relative extremes-north of 30 degrees north latitude and south of 30 degrees south latitude-and all were carved on the cold, shaded sides of slopes.

America is one of many countries where the state gives a leg-up to members of certain racial, ethnic, or other groups【C1】______holding them to different standards. The details【C2】______. In some countries, the policy【C3】______only to areas under direct state control, such as public-works contracts or【C4】______to public universities. In others, private firms are also obliged to take【C5】______of the race of their employees, contractors and even owners. 【C6】______the effects are strikingly similar around the world. Many of these policies were put in place with the best of intentions: to【C7】______for past injustices and purify their legacy. No one can deny that, 【C8】______, blacks in America have suffered awful wrongs, and continue to suffer【C9】______. Favouring members of these groups seems like a quick and effective way of making society【C10】______. Most of these groups have made great【C11】______. At the same time, the downside of affirmative action has become all too【C12】______. Awarding university places to black students 【C13】______lower test scores than whites sounds reasonable, 【C14】______the legacy of segregation. But a study found that at some American universities, black applicants who scored 450 points worse than Asians on entrance tests were【C15】______likely to win a place. That is neither fair on Asians, nor a(n) 【C16】______to blacks to study in high school. The book "Mismatch" produces evidence that【C17】______affirmative action reduces the number of blacks who【C18】______as lawyers by placing black students in law schools for which they are【C19】______, causing many to drop out Had they attended less demanding schools, they might have 【C20】______.

BPart B/B

Write a letter to Mr. Terry Thompson, recommending a Chinese university for him to study in China. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

At school we went over our social networking guidelines. 【C1】______the obvious—don"t be inappropriate with students through texting and Facebooking—we were further【C2】______to "always think and write like an educator" and "never use a blog to【C3】______your job duties" and "never blog or write about extremely personal【C4】______". The handout told us that any Facebook pictures that show "the use of alcohol or anything students are prohibited from doing," could【C5】______discipline. All of this is because "community members may hold you to a【C6】______standard of conduct than the【C7】______ person." It is also advised that teachers should【C8】______"discussion or revealing【C9】______students personal matters about their private lives" making me【C10】______every piece of writing I have ever shared with my students. Educators have been expected to be super-heroes for a while now, 【C11】______poverty, dysfunction,【C12】______curriculums, and time. But now we are expected to be the faultless and faceless【C13】______opinions or personal lives. I understand the Public Face and I have gotten pretty good at【C14】______ it And I【C15】______am not forgiving inappropriate behavior with or around children. But with policies like this, I am【C16】______to buy beer at the grocery store or wear clothes 【C17】______break dress code out in public on hot days. But while the rest of the population gets to【C18】______into their averageness (【C19】______President Obama can drink beer in public without losing his job), teachers are expected to live their average lives behind【C20】______doors.

Ever since this government's term began, the attitude to teachers has been overshadowed by the mantra that good teachers cannot be rewarded if it means bad teachers are rewarded, too. That's why, despite the obvious need for them, big pay rises have not been awarded to teachers across the board. The latest pay rise was 3.6 percent—mad in the present situation. That's why, as well, the long battle over performance-related pay was fought as teacher numbers slid. The idea is that some kind of year zero can eventually be achieved whereby all the bad teachers are gone and only the good teachers remain. That is why the government's attempts to relieve the teacher shortage have been so focused on offering incentives to get a new generation of teachers into training. The assumption is that so many of the teachers we have already are bad, that only by starting again can standards be raised. But the teacher shortage is not caused only because of a lack of new teachers coming into the profession. It is also because teaching has a retention problem with many leaving the profession. These people have their reasons for doing so, which cannot be purely about wanting irresponsibly to "abandon" pupils more permanently. Such an exodus suggests that even beyond the hated union grandstanding, teachers are not happy. Unions and government appear to be in broad agreement that the shortage of teachers is a parlous state of affairs. Oddly, though, they don't seem entirely to agree that the reasons for this may lie in features of the profession itself and the way it is run. Instead, the government is so suspicious of the idea that teachers may be able to represent themselves, that they have set up the General Teaching Council, a body that will represent teachers whether they want it to or not, and to which they have to pay ￡25 a year whether they want to or not. The attitudes of both sides promise to exacerbate rather than solve the problem. Teachers are certainly exacerbating the problem by stressing just how bad things are. Quite a few potential teachers must be put off. And while the government has made quite a success of convincing the public that bad education is almost exclusively linked to bad teachers represented by destructive unions, it also seems appalling that in a survey last year, working hours for primary teachers averaged 53 hours per week, while secondary teachers clocked up 51 hours. At their spring conferences, the four major teaching unions intend to ballot their members on demanding from government an independent inquiry into working conditions. This follows the McCrone report in Scotland, which produced an agreement to limit hours to 35 per week, with a maximum class contact-time of 22 and a half hours. That sounds most attractive.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethepicturebriefly,2)explaintheintendedmeaningand3)giveyourpointofview.

BSection III Writing/B

Niall FitzGerald would have liked to leave Unilever in a blaze of glory when he retires at the end of September. The co-chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods group was one of the godfathers of Unilever"s "Path to Growth" strategy of focusing on its brands, which was launched five years ago. But the plan failed to deliver on many of its promises. On September 20th, Unilever warned that it would not report its promised double-digit growth in profits this year. It is a tough time for producers of branded consumer goods. Unilever and its competitors have to cope with pressure on prices and stiff competition from supermarkets" own brands. Colgate-Palmolive warned of lower profits on the same day. Nestle recently disappointed investors with its latest results. Even so, Unilever admits the bulk of its troubles are self-inflicted. The "Path to Growth" strategy aimed to make the firm more efficient. Unilever saved about 4 billion euro ($4.9 billion) in costs over the past five years and reduced its portfolio of brands from 1,600 to some 450. But it still failed to meet its targets for profit and sales, reporting a sales decline of 0.@7% for the second quarter of this year. Andrew Wood at Sanford Bernstein, an investment-research firm, thinks the main problem is under-investment in advertising and marketing, an infatuation with brands and unrealistic performance targets. Unilever cut its ad and marketing expenditure at the worst moment, says Mr. Wood. Com-moditised products are especially: vulnerable to the onslaught of retailers" own brands. In margarine, for instance, retailers" own brands now capture as much as one-fifth of the market. Unilever also over-extended some successful brands, for instance Bertolli"s olive oils and pasta sauces. According to Mr. Wood, Unilever can sustainably grow its business about 3% a year; it was shooting for 5-6%. Unilever"s chief financial officer (CFO) counters that consumers look for a product and then buy a brand, so his firm needs to focus on brands. Unilever intends to step up its marketing efforts, although ad spending is supposed to remain at current levels. At present, Unilever spends 14.@5% of sales on ads. But even the CFO admits the company has "issues of competitiveness". After seven quarters of disappointing performance, it needs to regain credibility with investors. Over the next few months, management will rethink its strategy for the next five-year plan. Patrick Cescau, a Frenchman who will take over from Mr. FitzGerald, is inheriting a tricky legacy.

Homework has never been terribly popular with students and even many parents, but in recently years it has been particularly scorned. School districts across the country, most recently Los Angeles Unified, are revising their thinking on this educational ritual. Unfortunately, L.A. Unified has produced an inflexible policy which mandates that with the exception of some advanced courses, homework may no longer count for more than 10% of a student"s academic grade. This rule is meant to address the difficulty that students from impoverished or chaotic homes might have in completing their homework. But the policy is unclear and contradictory. Certainly, no homework should be assigned that students cannot complete on their own or that they cannot do without expensive equipment. But if the district is essentially giving a pass to students who do not do their homework because of complicated family lives, it is going riskily close to the implication that standards need to be lowered for poor children. District administrators say that homework will still be a part of schooling; teachers are allowed to assign as much of it as they want. But with homework counting for no more than 10% of their grades, students can easily skip half their homework and see very little difference on their report cards. Some students might do well on state tests without completing their homework, but what about the students who performed well on the tests and did their homework? It is quite possible that the homework helped. Yet rather than empowering teachers to find what works best for their students, the policy imposes a flat, across-the-board rule. At the same time, the policy addresses none of the truly thorny questions about homework. If the district finds homework to be unimportant to its students" academic achievement, it should move to reduce or eliminate the assignments, not make them count for almost nothing. Conversely, if homework matters, it should account for a significant portion of the grade. Meanwhile, this policy does nothing to ensure that the homework students receive is meaningful or appropriate to their age and the subject, or that teachers are not assigning more than they are willing to review and correct. The homework rules should be put on hold while the school board, which is responsible for setting educational policy, looks into the matter and conducts public hearings. It is not too late for L.A. Unified to do homework right.

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

Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubgrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused—and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the Constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen. . . shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California"s recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress: one allows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983.) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he has done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada: the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running military superpowers.

Judith Vogtli, director of an upstate New York-based abstinence(the practice of refraining from sex, alcohol, etc)organization called Project Truth, is worried that the golden age of "abstinence-only" education may have come to an end. George W. Bush helped increase funding for this kind of sex education—which focuses on chastity as the way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and discusses condoms only in terms of failure—to over $175m a year. The fate of that money, and of abstinence education itself, is uncertain under a new administration and Congress. Ms Vogtli need only wait a few weeks. Barack Obama will submit the first draft of his budget to Congress later this month. In the meantime, her organization, funded entirely by a government grant, is trying to go about business as usual. That means teaching about abstaining from sex, drugs and alcohol in New York schools and holding its sixth annual abstinence Creativity Contest, to which students submitted essays, poems, artwork and music on the theme of "Waiting is easier because..." Abstinence-only education programs have been controversial ever since they were introduced under Ronald Reagan in 1981. Some liberals have labeled it "ignorance-only" education and most favor a curriculum that includes discussion of both abstinence and contraception(the method to prevent pregnancy). Since the start of abstinence-only programs, the federal government has spent over $1.5 billion on them, but the United States still has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates of any developed country. Supporters of abstinence-only education mostly think that the media and a culture of casual sexual behaviors are to blame for this and that more government support for abstinence could help offset the rise of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. But opponents blame abstinence-only education. There is some evidence to support their case. According to Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, an advocacy organization, there has been no randomized study showing that abstinence-only education delays sexual activity, and research from the University of Washington suggests that teens who receive comprehensive sex education have a 50% lower risk of becoming pregnant than those enrolled in abstinence-only courses. Abstinence-only advocates want the government to let school districts choose which type of sex education they prefer. But in an unfavorable sign for them, the new Congress is already shifting its emphasis. Louise Slaughter, a congresswoman from New York and a former scientist, has introduced a bill that would fund "medically accurate" comprehensive sex education in schools. It is likely to pass.

"It keeps you grounded, puts you in a situation that keeps you out of trouble, and puts you with a group that has the same mind-set," says Molly Skinner, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, appraising the nonathletic benefits she experienced while playing soccer in high school. According to one new study, suiting up for the high school team does seem to givegirls a boost when it comes to getting a college diploma. The recent study, conducted by professors from Brigham Young University (BYU) and West Chester University of Pennsylvania (WCUP), found that women who played sports in high school were 73 percent more likely to earn a bachelor"s degree within six years of graduating from high school than those who did not. (The study did not look at male athletes.) Their analysis of data from 5,103 women collected as part of a U.S. Department of Education study found that even among girls who face statistical challenges finishing college based on socioeconomic background, the athletes still had more than 40 percent higher college completion rates than nonathletes, regardless of whether they played at the college level. "In times when we worry about improving academic performance or outcomes, we wonder should we be devoting time and money to extracurricular activities?" asks BYU Prof. Mikaela Dufur, one of the study"s authors. "These are important arenas for—in our case—girls to make connections with others and adults who help encourage them to succeed." At the collegiate level, though, the measure of women"s sports remains as murky (unclear) as ever, thanks to the politics of Title DC Enacted in 1972, Title DC guarantees women equal opportunity in collegiate sports, but its critics contend that many schools reach that balance by cutting men"s teams rather than adding women"s.A July report on Title DC from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has done little to settle the debate. That study found increases in student participation in college athletics on both sides of the gender line, though the growth rate was higher for women"s teams and female athletes. Title DC critics say that the GAO report relies too heavily on National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) data, which can obscure the number of men"s teams cut from particular schools as more colleges join the NCAA verall. While the political debate continues, female athletes themselves seem to be focusing on the finish line. "I think that sports teaches you to persevere," says Virginia Tech-bound Rachel Plumb, who raced on her high school"s cross country team. "It teaches you to keep an eye on a goal."

Back in July 1965, the Mariner Four Space Probe transmitted the first close-up pictures of Mars and convinced many people that Mars was as dead as our own moon. Two later space probes seemed to confirm this. But then, in 1971, Mariner Nine raise hopes once again that there could be life on the planet—or at least that life might once have existed there. The range of experiments to be conducted were designed by mission scientists such as Chuck Klein: "It was like shooting blind, so to speak, to be trying to devise experiments to look for evidence of life. And we decide to try to use an instrument which could incorporate many different assumptions about what Martian biology might be like—what the bugs might be like or not like. But the fundamental proposition in each portion of our experiment was to look, over a period of time, for evidence of some process going on which we could attribute to biology." The scientists controlled the Viking experiments from a distance of almost 100 million kilometers. Cameras took pictures of the area a round the robot landers—in case anything moved into view. No aliens were spotted by the cameras, but other experiments seems to show signs of life. "Almost everything that we planned began to give us data of some kind—that is to say, it wasn"t like everything was dead. For many weeks, we were goaded by the media, who were terribly excited—they were constantly looking for a headline, you know. They Found Life! They Found Life! Every bit of information that we came up with was squeezed by them to try to put a positive twist on it. We really had to work very hard to maintain our cool and present the data just the way we saw it." But these apparent signs of life were deceptive. By repeating the experiments and double checking the results, the scientists eventually came to the conclusion that the whole planet was dead and would, in fact, be deadly to living organisms. Since 1976, there have been no further visits. A probe sent by NASA exploded before reaching the planet last year and it now doesn"t look as if there"ll be another Mars visit until the end of the decade. When we do get back there, will we find something new? And what about us? Could we ever live on Mars? This isn"t as strange an idea as it sounds according to astronomer Patrick Moorer. "It"s fair to say that, from a technical point of view, we could put men on Mars within the next few decades. Whether we actually do so or not depends very much more upon politics and finance than upon sheer science, but I think it could be done. And I"m quite prepared to believe that by this time in the next century, there will be flourishing colonies upon Mars."

Over the last decade, demand for the most common cosmetic surgery procedures, like breast enlargements and nose jobs, has increased by more than 400 percent. According to Dr. Dai Davies, of the Plastic Surgery Partnership in Hammersmith, the majority of cosmetic surgery patients are not chasing physical perfection. Rather, they are driven to fantastic lengths to improve their appearance by a desire to look normal."【F1】 What we all crave is to look normal, and normal is what is prescribed by the advertising media and other external pressures. They give us a perception of what is physically acceptable and we feel we must look like that." 【F2】 In America, the debate is no longer about whether surgery is normal; rather, it centres on what age people should be before going under the knife. New York surgeon Dr. Gerard Imber recommends "maintenance" work for people in their thirties. "The idea of waiting until one needs a heroic transformation is silly," he says, "By then, you've wasted 20 great years of your life and allowed things to get out of hand." Dr. Imber draws the line at operating on people who are under 18, however. "It seems that someone we don't consider old enough to order a drink shouldn't be considering plastic surgery." In the UK cosmetic surgery has long been seen as the exclusive domain of the very rich and famous.【F3】 But the proportionate cost of treatment has fallen substantially, bringing all but the most advanced laser technology within the reach of most people. Dr. Davies, who claims to "cater for the average person", agrees. He says:"I treat a few of the rich and famous and an awful lot of secretaries. Of course, ￡3, 000 for an operation is a lot of money. But it is also an investment for life which costs about half the price of a good family holiday." 【F4】 Dr. Davies suspects that the increasing sophistication of the fat injecting and removal techniques that allow patients to be treated with a local anaesthetic in an afternoon has also helped promote the popularity of cosmetic surgery. 【F5】 Yet, as one woman who recently paid ￡2, 500 for liposuction to remove fat from her thighs admitted, the slope to becoming a cosmetic surgery Veteran is a deceptively gentle one. "I had my legs done because they'd been bugging me for years. But going into the clinic was so low key and effective it whetted my appetite. Now I don't think there's any operation that I would rule out having if I could afford it."

Improving the balance between the working part of the day and the rest of it is a goal of a growing number of workers in rich Western countries. Some are turning away from the ideals of their parents, for whom work always came first; others with scarce skills are demanding more because they know they can get it. Employers, Caught between a falling population of workers and tight controls on immigration, are eager to identify extra perks that will lure more "talent" their way. Just now they are focusing on benefits (especially flexible working) that offer employees more than just pay. Some companies saw the change of mood some time ago. IBM has more than 50 different programmes promoting work-life balance and Bank of America over 30. But plenty of other firms remain unconvinced and many lack the capacity to cater to such ideas even if they wanted to. Helen Muftis, with Hay Group, a human-resources consultancy, sees a widening gap between firms "at the creative end of employment" and those that are not. The chief component of almost all schemes to promote work-life balance is flexible working. This allows people to escape rigid nine-to-five schedules and work away from a formal office. IBM says that 40% of its employees today work off the company premises. For many businesses, flexible working is a necessity. Globalization has spread the hours in which workers need to communicate with each other and increased the call for flexible shifts. Nella Barkley, an American who advises companies on work-life balance, says that large firms ale beginning to understand the value of such schemes, "but only slowly". For most of them, they still mean little more than child care, health care and flexible working. To some extent, the proliferation of work-life-balance schemes is a function of today"s labour market. Companies in knowledge, based industries worry about the shortage of skills and how they are going to persuade talented people to work for them. Although white-collar workers are more likely to be laid off nowadays, they are also likely to get rehired. Unemployment among college graduates in America is just over 2%. The same competition for scarce. talent is evident in Britain. For some time to come, talented people in the West will demand more from employers, and clever employers will create new gewgaws to entice them to join. Those employers should note that for a growing number of these workers the most appealing gewgaw of all is the freedom to work as and when they please.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

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. "For decades, the cognitive and neural sciences have treated mental processes as though they involved passing discrete packets of information in a strictly feed-forward fashion from one cognitive module to the next or in a string of individuated binary symbols—like a digital computer", said Spivey. "More recently, however, a growing number of studies, such as ours, support dynamical-systems approaches to the mind. In this model, perception and cognition are mathematically described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional mental space; the neural activation patterns flow back and forth to produce nonlinear, self-organized, emergent properties—like a biological organism".B. The computer metaphor describes cognition as being in a particular discrete state, for example, "on or off" or in values of either zero or one, and in a static state until moving on. If there was ambiguity, the model assumed that the mind jumps the gun to one state or the other, and if it realizes it is wrong, it then makes a correction.C. In his study, 42 students listened to instructions to click on pictures of different objects on a computer screen. When the students heard a word, such as "candle", and were presented with two pictures whose names did not sound alike, such as a candle and a jacket, the trajectories of their mouse movements were quite straight and directly to the candle. But when the students heard "candle" and were presented with two pictures with similarly sounding names, such as candle and candy, they were slower to click on the correct object, and their mouse trajectories were much more curved. Spivey said that the listeners started processing what they heard even before the entire word was spoken.D. In a new study published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 27—July 1), Michael Spivey, a psycholinguist and associate professor of psychology at Cornell, tracked the mouse movements of undergraduate students while working at a computer. The findings provide compelling evidence that language comprehension is a continuous process.E. Whereas the older models of language processing theorized that neural systems process words in a series of discrete stages, the alternative model suggests that sensory input is processed continuously so that even partial linguistic input can start "the dynamic competition between, simultaneously active representations".F. "When there was ambiguity, the participants briefly didn"t know which picture was correct and so for several dozen milliseconds, they were in multiple states at once. They didn"t move all the way to one picture and then correct their movement if they realized they were wrong, but instead they traveled through an intermediate gray area", explained Spivey. "The degree of curvature of the trajectory shows bow much the other object is competing for their interpretation; the curve shows continuous competition. They sort of partially heard the word both ways, and their resolution of the ambiguity was gradual rather than discrete; it"s a dynamical system".G. "In thinking of cognition as working as a biological organism does, on the other hand, you do not have to be in one state or another like a computer, but can have values in between—you can be partially in one state and another, and then eventually gravitate to a unique interpretation, as in finally recognizing a spoken word", Spivey said.Order: D is the first paragraph and E is the last.