Curiously, for a publication called a newspaper, no one has ever coined a standard definition of news. But for the most part, news usually falls under one broad classification the abnormal. It is human folly, mechanical failures and natural disasters that often "make the news". 【R1】______Occasionally, a reporter will go to jail rather than reveal the name of a confidential source for a news story. American newspapers proudly consider themselves the fourth branch of government—the watchdog branch that exposes legislative, executive and judicial misbehavior. 【R2】______Others are called general assignment reporters, which means they are on call for a variety of stories such as accidents, civil events and human-interest stories. Depending on a newspaper's needs during the daily news cycle, seasoned reporters easily shift between beat and general-assignment work.(New reporters once were called cubs, but the term is no longer used.) 【R3】______They are our chroniclers of daily life, sorting, sifting and bringing a sense of order to a disorderly world. 【R4】______Other editors—sports, photo, state, national, features and obituary, for example—may also report to the managing editor. 【R5】______ Once the city or metro editor has finished editing a reporter's raw copy, the story moves from the composition system via the computer network to another part of the news division, the copy desk. Here, copy editors check for spelling and other errors of usage. They may also look for "holes" in the story that would confuse readers or leave their questions unanswered. If necessary, copy editors may check facts in the newspaper's library, which maintains a large collection of reference books, microfilm and online copies of stories that have appeared in the paper. [A]All reporters are ultimately responsible to an editor. Depending on its size, a newspaper may have numerous editors, beginning with an executive editor responsible for the news division. Immediately below the executive editor is the managing editor, the person who oversees the day-to-day work of the news division. [B]Reporters are a newspaper' s front-line eyes and ears. Reporters glean information from many sources, some public, such as police records, and others private, such as a government informant. [C]Newspapers are increasingly doing this work, called pagination, with personal computers using software available at any office supply store. Microsoft Windows, Word and Quark Express are three programs that, though not designed for newspaper production, are easily adapted for it. [D]However, the best known and in some ways the most crucial editor is the city or metro editor. This is the editor that reporters work for directly. The city or metro editor assigns stories, enforces deadlines and is the first to see reporters' raw copy on the composition system or computer network. These editors are called gatekeepers, because they control much of what will and will not appear in the next day' s paper. [E]Before we see what happens to the electronic pages built by the copy desk, it will be helpful to understand how other divisions of the newspapers contribute to the production cycle. [F]Some reporters are assigned to beats, or an area of coverage, such as the courts, city hall, education, business, medicine and so forth. [G]In the movies, reporters have exciting, frenzied and dangerous jobs as they live a famous pronouncement of the newspaper business: Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Although a few members of the media have been killed as a result of investigations into wrongdoing, newspaper work for the great majority of reporters is routine.

The origin of continental nuclei has long been a puzzle. Theories advanced so far have generally failed to explain the first step in continent growth, or have been subject to serious objections. It is the purpose of this article to examine the possible role of the impact of large meteorites or asteroids in the production of continental nuclei. Unfortunately, the geological evolution of the Earth"s surface has had an obliterating effect on the original composition and structure of the continents to such an extent that further terrestrial investigations have small chance of arriving at an unambiguous answer to the question of continental origin. Paradoxically, clues to the origin and early history of the surface features of the Earth may be found on the Moon and planets, rather than on the Earth, because some of these bodies appear to have had a much less active geological history. As a result, relatively primitive surface features are preserved for study and analysis. In the case of both the Moon and Mars, it is generally concluded from the appearance of their heavily cratered surfaces that they have been subjected to bombardment by large meteoroids during their geological history. Likewise, it would appear a reasonable hypothesis that the Earth has also been subjected to meteoroid bombardment in the past, and that very large bodies struck the Earth early in its geological history. The largest crater on the Moon listed by Baldwin has a diameter of 285 km. However, if we accept the hypothesis of formation of some of the mare basins by impact, the maximum lunar impact crater diameter is probably as large as 650 km. Based on a lunar analogy, one might expect several impact craters of at least 500 km diameter to have been formed on Earth. By applying Baldwin"s equation, the depth of such a crater should be about 20 km. Baldwin admits that his equation gives excessive depths for large craters so that the actual depth should be somewhat smaller. Based on the measured depth of smaller lunar craters, a depth of 10 km is probably a conservative estimate for the diameter of a 500 km impact crater. Baldwin"s equation gives the depth of the zone of brecciation for such a crater as about 75 km. The plasticity, of the Earth"s mantle at the depth makes it impossible to speak of "brecciation" in the usual sense. However, local stresses may be temporarily sustained at that depth, as shown by the existence of deep-focus earthquakes. Thus, short-term effects might be expected to a depth of more than 50 km in the mantle. Even without knowing the precise effects, there is little doubt that the formation of a 500 km crater would be a major geological event. Numerous authors have considered the geological implications of such an event. Donn et al. have, for example, called on the impact of continent-size bodies of sialic composition to form the original continents. Two major difficulties inherent in this concept are the lack of any known sialic meteorites, and the high probability that the energy of impact would result in a wide dissemination of sialic material, rather than its concentration at the point of impact. Gilvarry, on the other hand, called on meteoroid impact to explain the production of ocean basins. The major difficulties with this model are that the morphology of most of the ocean basins is not consistent with impact, and that the origin and growth, of continents is not adequately explained. We agree with Donn et al. that the impact of large meteorites or asteroids may have caused continent formation, but would rather think in terms of the localized addition of energy to the system, rather than in terms of the addition of actual sialic material.

"After a lifetime of being honest", says Collins, "all of a sudden I was basically being accused of stealing and treated like a criminal.

Supposing the weather was bad, where would you go?

SeashoreorDumpingGround?Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)supportyourviewwithexamples.

Studythefollowingcartooncarefullyandwriteanessayinnolessthan200words.Youressaymusthewrittenclearlyandyouressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow,1)describethecartoon,deducethepurposeofthedrawerofthepicture,2)andgiveyourcomments.

The four girls in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" make a pact. (46) Having found the magic every woman dreams of, a pair of jeans that fits all four of them perfectly, they vow to share them long-distance during their first summer apart. The jeans must be magic, because the girls" shapes couldn"t be more different. Petite Lena (Alexis Bledel) is allergic to boys who see her as a beautiful face. Witty Carmen (America Ferrera) is too curvy to fit into the bridesmaid"s gown ordered for her by Lydia (Nancy Travis), the Southern bride-to-be of her divorced father (Bradley Whitford). Bridget (Blake Lively), a lanky star athlete, has never come to terms with her mother"s suicide. (47) And Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) is a blue-haired cynic whose summer job at a superstore named Wallman"s is paying for video equipment to make her first film. (48) The girls pass the jeans around to bring them luck when they are separated: Lena with relatives on Santorini where Kostas (Michael Rady) changes her mind about men; Carmen with the father she never sees, whose new family is a shock; Bridget in a Mexican soccer camp, where she sets her sights on Eric(Mike Vogel), forbidden fruit because he"s a coach; and Tibby videotaping her co-workers. "A documentary", says one interview subject. "That"s like a movie, only boring?" Delia Ephron and Elizabeth Chandler"s screenplay is nicely served by the direction of a comedy veteran, Ken Kwapis.(49) He creates a fairytale summer world where the girls grapple with real issues: love and family, death, losing your virginity for the wrong reasons, divorce, racism and having an unfashionable body type. (50) The magic, of course is in the girls, as they help each other achieve insights that few of their elders could manage gently sprinkled sprinkled with tears. Ann Brashares, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, has written two more books about the Sisterhood. If this one clicks, Warner Bros may find itself the proud owner of the first summer film franchise for teenage girls.

The willingness of doctors at several major medical centers to apologize .to patients for harmful errors is a promising step toward improving the rather disappointing quality of a medical system that kills tens of thousands of innocent patients a year inadvertently. For years, experts have lamented that medical malpractice litigation is an inefficient way to deter lethal or damaging medical errors. What they noticed, simply put it, is that most victims of malpractice never sue, and there is some evidence that many patients who do sue were not harmed by a physician"s error but instead suffered an adverse medical outcome that could not have been prevented. The details of what went wrong are often kept secret as part of a settlement agreement. What is needed, many specialists agree, is a system that quickly brings an error to light so that further errors can be headed off and that compensates victims promptly and fairly. Many doctors, unfortunately, have been afraid that admitting and describing their errors would only invite a costly lawsuit. Now, as described by Kevin Sack in The Times, a handful of prominent academic medical centers have adopted a new policy of promptly disclosing errors, offering earnest apologies and providing fair compensation. It appears to satisfy many patients, reduce legal costs and the litigation burden and, in some instances, helps reduce malpractice premiums. Here are some examples from colleges of the United States: at the University of Illinois, of 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient filed suit; at the University of Michigan Health System, existing claims and lawsuits dropped from 262 in August 2001 to 83 in August 2007, and legal costs fell by two-thirds. To encourage greater candor, more than 30 states have enacted laws making apologies for medical errors inadmissible in court. That sounds like a sensible step that should be adopted by other states or become federal law. Such laws could help bring more errors to light. Patients who have been harmed by negligent doctors can still sue for malpractice, using other evidence to make their case. Admitting errors is only the first step toward reforming the health care system so that far fewer mistakes are made. But reforms can be more effective if doctors are candid about how they went astray. Patients seem far less angry when they receive an. honest explanation, an apology and prompt, fair compensation for the harm they have suffered.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(20points)

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

AMERICA"S central bank sent a clear message this week. For the second consecutive meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank"s policy-making committee, left short term interest rates unchanged at 1.75%. But it said that the risks facing the economy had shifted from economic weakness to a balance between weakness and excessive growth. This shift surprised no one. But it has convinced many people that interest rates are set to rise again—and soon. Judging by prices in futures markets, investors are betting that short-term interest rates could start rising as early as May, and will be 1.25 percentage points higher by the end of the year. That may be excessive. Economists at Goldman Sachs, who long argued that the central bank would do nothing this year, now expect short-term rates to go up only 0.75% this year, starting in June. But virtually everyone reckons some Fed tightening is in the offing. The reason? After an unprecedented 11 rate-cuts in 2001, short term interest rates are abnormally low. As the signs of robust recovery multiply, analysts expect the Fed to take back some of the rate-cuts it used as an "insurance policy" after the September 11th terrorist attack. They think there will be a gradual move from the Fed"s current "accommodative" monetary stance to a more neutral policy. And a neutral policy, many argue, ultimately implies short term interest rates of around 4%. Logical enough. But higher rates could still be further off, particularly if the recovery proves less robust than many hope. Certainly, recent economic indicators have been extraordinarily strong: unemployment fell for the second consecutive month in February and industrial production rose in both January and February. The manufacturing sector is growing after 18 months of decline. The most optimistic Wall Streeters now expect GDP to have expanded by between 5% and 6% on an annual basis in the first quarter. But one strong quarter does not imply a sustainable recovery. In the short term, the bounce-back is being driven by a dramatic restocking of inventories. But it can be sustained only if corporate investment recovers and consumer spending stays buoyant. With plenty of slack capacity around and many firms stuck with huge debts and lousy profits, it is hard to see where surging investment will come from. And, despite falling unemployment, America"s consumers could disappoint the bulls. These uncertainties alone suggest the central bank will be cautious about raising interest rates. Indeed, given the huge pressure on corporate profits, the Federal Reserve might be happy to see consumer prices rise slightly. In short, while Wall Street frets about when and how much interest rates will go up. The answer may well be not soon and not much.

Could a hug a day keep the doctor away? The answer may be a resounding " yes!" 【B1】______helping you feel close and【B2】______to people you care about, it turns out that hugs can bring a【B3】______of health benefits to your body and mind. Believe it or not, a warm embrace might even help you【B4】______getting sick this winter. In a recent study【B5】______over 400 healthy adults, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania examined the effects of perceived social support and the receipt of hugs【B6】______the participants' susceptibility to developing the common cold after being【B7】______to the virus. People who perceived greater social support were less likely to come【B8】______with a cold, and the researchers【B9】______that the stress-reducing effects of hugging【B10】______about 32 percent of that beneficial effect. 【B11】______among those who got a cold, the ones who felt greater social support and received more frequent hugs had less severe【B12】______ " Hugging protects people who are under stress from the【B13】______risk for colds that' s usually【B14】______with stress," notes Sheldon Cohen, a professor of psychology at Carnegie. Hugging "is a marker of intimacy and help【B15】______the feeling that others are there to help【B16】______difficulty. " Some experts【B17】______the stress-reducing, health-related benefits of hugging to the release of oxytocin, often called "the bonding hormone"【B18】______it promotes attachment in relationships, including that between mothers and their newborn babies. Oxytocin is made primarily in the central lower part of the brain, and some of it is released into the bloodstream. But some of it【B19】______in the brain, where it【B20】______mood, behavior and physiology.

President Barack Obama claimed progress Wednesday in his second-term drive to combat climate change but said more must be done to address a generational problem. One year after unveiling an aggressive plan, Obama said new【C1】______limits on power plants, renewable energy projects and new【C2】______for green technology have cleared the way for further action in the U.S. and abroad, despite steadfast【C3】______from much of Congress. "When you take those first steps, even if they're【C4】______, and even if there are politics sometimes, you start【C5】______momentum and you start mobilizing larger and larger communities," Obama said. Obama's【C6】______served as a progress report for his climate plan, which the president【C7】______out last June. Twelve months later, much of the plan is in【C8】______, although the most ambitious steps are still up in the air and will take years to be【C9】______realized. Change won't be instantaneous, Obama【C10】______. "There's no silver bullet" Indeed, many of the steps he's taking are【C11】______, limited in scope by hostility from both parties to putting a【C12】______on carbon pollution, which would require new laws from Congress. Still, Obama said he's seeking to【C13】______the problem but cutting it up into smaller pieces. "We're moving, and it's making a【C14】______," he told a supportive crowd at the League of Conservation Voter's annual dinner. The environmental group【C15】______Obama early in his 2008 campaign.【C16】______on the international front, momentum has been obscure.【C17】______global climate talks next year in Paris, there are fresh【C18】______that some countries are urging others to resist【C19】______moves to curb carbon. That could discourage even bigger polluters from【C20】______.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

You have a friend who is about to enter university, and he wants you to give him some advice on which major to choose: history, in which he is interested in or computer science, which indicates better job prospects. Write a letter with no less than 100 words to tell him your opinion and explain the reasons. Write it neatly and do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

HowtoPreventHypertension?Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

Dieting, according to an old joke, may not actually make you live longer, but it sure feels that way. Nevertheless, evidence has been accumulating since the 1930s that calorie restriction—reducing an animal"s energy intake below its energy expenditure—extends lifespan and delays the onset of age-related diseases in rats, dogs, fish and monkeys. Such results have inspired thousands of people toput up with constant hunger in the hope of living longer, healthier lives. They have also led to a search for drugs that mimic the effects of calorie restriction without the pain of going on an actual diet. Amid the hype (intensive publicity), it is easy to forget that no one has until now shown that calorie restriction works in humans. That omission, however, changed this month, with the publication of the initial results of the first systematic investigation into the matter. This study, known as CALERIE (Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy), was sponsored by America"s National Institutes of Health. It took 48 men and women aged between 25 and 50 and assigned them randomly to either a control group or a calorie-restriction regime. Those in the second group were requir ed to cut their calorie intake for six months to 75% of that needed to maintain their weight. The CALERIE study is a landmark in the history of the field, because its subjects were either of normal weight or only slightly overweight. Previous projects have used individuals who were clinically obese, thus confusing the unquestionable benefits to health of reducing obesity with the possible advantages of calorie restriction to the otherwise healthy. At a molecular level, CALERIE suggests these advantages are real. For example, those on restricted diets had lower insulin resistance and lower levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. They showed drops in body temperature and blood-insulin levels—both phenomena that have been seen in long-lived, calorie-restricted animals. They also suffered less oxidative damage to their DNA. Eric Ravussin, of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, who is one of the study"s authors, says that such results provide support for the theory that calorie restriction produces a metabolic adaptation over and above that which would be expected from weight loss alone. Nevertheless, such metabolic adaptation could be the reason why calorie restriction is associated with longer lifespans in other animals—and that is certainly the hope of those who, for the past 15 years, have been searching for ways of triggering that metabolic adaptation by means other than semi-starvation.

The study by researchers at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that even in the absence of moonlight, participants slept less deeply and for shorter periods during the full moon than at other lunar phases. It is a phenomenon already known in other organisms as the " circalunar rhythm ", but has never before been shown in humans. The brain pattern, eye movements and hormone secretion of volunteers were studied while they slept. Participants were also asked for subjective assessments of their sleep quality. The results, published in Current Biology , showed that around the full moon, subjects" brain activity associated with deep sleep decreased by 30%. They took 5 minutes longer to fall asleep, had 20 minutes less sleep overall and lower levels of melatonin—a hormone known to regulate sleep. These findings correlated with the volunteers" own perception that sleep quality was poorer during the full moon. Previous research has found no association between the phases of the moon and human physiology or behaviour. "I think one issue in the past was that they compared a lot of people by mixing different laboratories, different devices, and including data from patients, so the entire thing was not standardised," Cajochen said. "The advantage here is that we really had a standardised protocol. " The data was taken from a previous study that was not originally looking at the moon" s influence. Participants were kept in a very controlled environment, with artificial lighting, regulated temperature and no way of checking the time. This ensured that internal body rhythms could be investigated independently of external influences. "The only disadvantage with such a standardised procedure is that we could only investigate 33 people," said Cajochen. "What I would like to do in the future is to increase the number of subjects and then to follow up each person through the entire moon cycle. " But such a study would have problems of its own, he added. "If you"re actually going to tell people you"re investigating the influence of the moon, then you may trigger some expectation or sensitivity in them. Sleep is also a psychological thing, of course. " If true, the mechanisms responsible for the phenomenon are unknown. Malcolm von Schantz, a molecular neurobiologist at Surrey University, said: "Essentially it could be either two things: the moon itself has a gravitational pull which somehow affects our physiology. I find that very unlikely as the gravitational pull of the moon is fairly weak. It doesn"t cause tides in lakes for example, only in large oceans. In fact, if you"re sitting within 15 inches of the wall right now then the wall has a stronger gravitational pull on you than the moon does. So I don"t think we have a sort of mini-tide in ourselves. " "The alternative is that there is a "counter", a mechanism which keeps track somehow of the phases of the moon. " Marine animals are already known to follow a circalunar rhythm and some believe it is tightly intertwined with the circadian rhythm—the other internal clock that many organisms, humans included, have which is entrained to the sun. Other researchers have wondered why a human circalunar clock should exist in the first place. Michael Hastings, a neuroscientist studying circadian rhythms at Cambridge University, said: "In evolutionary terms, it sounds plausible to me at least. " If you were a hunter gatherer, you"d want to be out there on a full moon, not a new moon. It might be that there"s something about suppression of sleep under those circumstances because you should be out hunting.

Despite its name, Smugglers" Gulch is one of the toughest places to sneak into America The narrow valley near San Diego is divided by a steel wall and watched day and night by agents of the border patrol, who track would-be illegal immigrants with the help of helicopters and underground pressure sensors. Rafael, a cement worker, has already been caught jumping over the fence five times. Yet he still wanders on the Mexican side of the fence, waiting for nightfall and another chance to cross. How much longer will he keep trying? "Until I get through," he says. Last week the Senate tried, and failed, to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. After much debate it abandoned a bill that would have provided more money for border security but also allowed many illegal immigrants to obtain visas. Yet the collapse of the Senate bill does not mean illegal immigration will go away, either as a fact or as an urgent political issue. Indeed, one likely consequence will be an outbreak of ad hoc law-making in cities and states. One such place is Arizona, where the governor, signed a bill this week imposing rigid penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants. Those who are caught once will have their licenses suspended; a second offence will put them out of business. Even the governor admits the bill is too broadly drawn and will be hard to enforce. She signed it, she explained, because the federal government has shown itself to be incapable of dealing with illegal immigration. One in ten workers in Arizona is illegal, according to the Pew Hispanic Centre. So the law, if rigorously enforced, could disrupt the state"s economy, which suggests it will not be. One landscape gardener in Scottsdale who worked illegally for three decades and now pays illegal workers $7 an hour thinks the measure is ridiculous. "Who else is going to pick lettuces and trim trees in this heat?" he asks, pointing to the sun on a 47°C day. He has no plans to change his ways, and says he will simply move if he is caught. Laws such as Arizona"s will make life more unpleasant and unpredictable for illegal workers. But they will not curtail either illegal immigration or illegal working as much as supporters claim. In any case, the border has been so porous for so long that people now have plenty of reasons to steal across it other than work. Of five aspiring immigrants who spoke to the correspondent in Smugglers" Gulch earlier this week, three were trying to join their families.

An analysis of workplace trends shows that employee perks, a reliable indicator of job market strength, are beginning to make a comeback. While not as Extravagant as those offered in the late 1990s, companies clearly are shifting their focus from workforce reduction to workforce retention. Firms realize that they require a foundation of experienced, trained, and motivated workers. These employers are improving and/ or adding perks to prevent an exodus of workers that could occur as the economy continues improving. They also may be looking further down the road when severe labor shortages are expected to return. An analysis of perks offered in today"s workplace shows that many of the 1990s-style benefits, such as game rooms and luxury car leases, have been abandoned. The perks that remain popular with employers and employees are those that help workers stay healthy, career focused, and financially stable. Perhaps the most appreciated are those that help individuals maintain work-life balance. Work-life balance is just one part of the growing concern companies have about the overall emotional and physical health of their workers. Employees who are stressed out or depressed because they do not feel as if they are giving enough attention to the nonwork aspects of their lives ultimately are unproductive. More and more companies also are learning that workers desire the opportunity to grow professionally in the workplace. HewlettPackard, for instance, has boosted its employee education and development budget by 20%. Nationwide Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, established a career-planning website in 2003. The site provides information on company job opportunities, career development, and an in-house mentoring program. Nationwide also is helping to educate its employees in financial matters, acknowledging that workers distracted by such issues on the job are not giving their full attention to the company"s priorities. It is adding classes and seminars on personal finance issues and 401(k) investments. Sometimes perks simply are about keeping employee morale elevated. Knowing that an improving economy might prompt valued employees to seek new opportunities, the owner of Ticketcity. com has lavished his best performers with tickets to the Masters golf tournament(锦标赛), access to country clubs, and invitations to a management retreat in Sedona, Ariz. Moreover, even companies that cannot afford to institute costly perks can find ways to make sure current employees are happy. Doug Dorman, vice president of human resources for the Greenville (S.C.) Hospital System explains that there is a definite sense of urgency when it comes to employee retention, knowing that labor shortages are returning. Dorman notes, however, that they have not focused on perks, "but rather on creating a culture of recognition and appreciation. Employees stay when they have good two-way communication with management and are truly appreciated and recognized for their contributions".