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

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In a purely biological sense, fear begins with the body's system for reacting to things that can harm us—the so-called fight-or-flight response . "An animal that can't detect danger can't stay alive," says Joseph LeDoux. Like animals, humans evolved with an elaborate mechanism for processing information about potential threats. At its core is a cluster of neurons deep in the brain known as the amygdala. LeDoux studies the way animals and humans respond to threats to understand how we form memories of significant events in our lives. The amygdala receives input from many parts of the brain, including regions responsible for retrieving memories. Using this information, the amygdala appraises a situation—I think this charging dog wants to bite me—and triggers a response by radiating nerve signals throughout the body. These signals produce the familiar signs of distress: trembling, perspiration and fast-moving feet, just to name three. This fear mechanism is critical to the survival of all animals, but no one can say for sure whether beasts other than humans know they're afraid. That is, as LeDoux says, "if you put that system into a brain that has consciousness, then you get the feeling of fear." Humans, says Edward M. Hallowell, have the ability to call up images of bad things that happened in the past and to anticipate future events. Combine these higher thought processes with our hardwired danger-detection systems, and you get a near-universal human phenomenon: worry. That's not necessarily a bad thing, says Hallowell. "When used properly, worry is an incredible device ," he says. After all, a little healthy worrying is okay if it leads to constructive action—like having a doctor look at that weird spot on your back. Hallowell insists, though, that there' s a right way to worry. "Never do it alone, get the facts and then make a plan." He says. Most of us have survived a recession, so we're familiar with the belt-tightening strategies needed to survive a slump. Unfortunately, few of us have much experience dealing with the threat of terrorism, so it's been difficult to get fact about how we should respond. That' s why Hallowell believes it was okay for people to indulge some extreme worries last fall by asking doctors for Cipro and buying gas masks.

The housing market has been for two years propping up consumers" spirits while the rest of the economy lies exhausted on the floor, still trying to struggle to its feet. According to the National Association of Realtors, the national median existing-home price ended the year at $164,000, up 7.1 percent from 2001. That"s the strongest annual increase since 1980. Although residential real estate activity makes up less than 8% of total U.S. GDP, a housing market like this one can make the difference between positive and negative growth. Most significantly, consumer spending is 66% of GDP, and the purchase of a new home tends to have an "umbrella effect" on the homeowner"s spending as he has to stock it with a washer/ dryer, a new big-screen TV, and maybe a swing set for the yard. The main factor in housing"s continued strength is a classic economic example of zero-sum boom: the persistent weakness everywhere else. As the 2003 recovery continues to be more forecast than reality. Falling stock prices raised investor appeal for U.S. Treasury Bonds, which in turn, allowed most interest rates to drift even lower. But there are not many signs that there"s a bubble ready to burst. December"s new record in housing starts, for example, was nicely matched by the new record in new home sales. If you build it, they will buy and even if an economic pickup starts to reduce housing"s relative attractiveness, there"s no reason why modest economic growth and improved consumer mood can"t help sustaining housing"s strength. "The momentum gained from low mortgage interest rates will carry strong home sales into 2003, with an improving economy offsetting modestly higher mortgage interest rates as the year progresses", said David Lereah, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. Just as housing has taken up much of the economic slack for the past two years, both as a comforting investment for fretting consumers and a driver of consumer spending itself, a big bump elsewhere in the economy in 2003 could be housing"s downfall. If stocks roar back this spring, capital inflows could steal from the bond market, pushing up long-term interest rates. Or Alan Greenspan and the Fed could do the same to short-term rates, as a way to hit the brakes on a recovery that is heating up too fast. In other words, if everything possible goes wrong for housing, homeowners should have plenty to compensate them in terms of job security and income hikes.

Are women really advancing? In Africa, HIV/AIDS has set them back, while in India, pregnant women (1)_____ prefer boys they abort half a million females a year. And in Britain, which saw a (2)_____ female prime minister during the 1980s, a report by the nation"s Equal Opportunities Commission says gender equality in public life is "decades away". (3)_____ about 10% of senior positions in large companies and law enforcement are held by women, while the (4)_____ for women in Parliament is so slow that equality may (5)_____ a couple centuries. In Britain, as in America, there"s a (6)_____ that discrimination plays (7)_____ of a role in women"s progress in public life as more women stay in favor of motherhood (8)_____ careers in what"s called "choice feminism". These "choices", however, are often (9)_____.by the high cost of day care or its unavailability. In Japan, (10)_____ discrimination against women still remains strong, (11)_____ a 1985 law against it. But now that nation, with its low birth rate, faces a labor (12)_____ as it ages rapidly, and the government is (13)_____ new measures to encourage mothers to return to work after childbirth. The new measures (14)_____ more work flexibility for such returning workers, (15)_____ day care, and support women entrepreneurs. The Arab world has only recently begun to recognize the untapped potential of women as leaders. Iraq"s new Constitution required every (16)_____ candidate in the recent election to be a woman and that its parliament be 25 percent female. (17)_____ the charter also gives a (18)_____ role to Islam in writing new laws. (19)_____ many measures, from politics to poverty, women still have a long way to go toward equality and (20)_____.

You are going to read an article which is followed by a list of examples or headings. Choose the most suitable one from the list A-F for each numbered position(41-45). There may be certain extra which you do not need to use. (10 points) You are going to read a list of headings and a text about The Secret of American Colleges and Universities" Success.A. Education for the massesB. The key to successC. The character of America"s system of higher education.D. Promoting diversityE. Competition breeds successF. Investing in the future For more than two centuries, America"s colleges and universities have been the backbone of the country"s progress. They have educated the technical, managerial and professional work force and provided generation after generation of national leaders. Their unparalleled capacity for research has put the United States at the cutting edge of science and of scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Without this vast network of universities, the nation would never have achieved its current preeminence. (41)______. The decentralization, diversity, academic freedom and shared governance that have evolved over the past two centuries have made America"s system of higher education one of the most accessible and democratic in the world. Today educators from around the globe are turning to U. S. institutions of higher learning for inspiration. They are apt to find many reasons for the excellence of American universities, including America"s tradition of philanthropy, but four historic acts stand out as watersheds: (42)______. In 1862 Congress enacted the Land-Grant College Act (also known as the Morrill Act, after the congressman who proposed it), which essentially extended the opportunity of higher education to all Americans—including such disenfranchised groups as women and minorities. Each state was permitted to sell large tracts of federal land and use the proceeds to endow at least one public college. (43)______. Over the years, the decentralization and diversity of America"s colleges and universities have promoted competition for students and resources. Competitive pressure first arose during the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln created the National Academy of Sciences to advise Congress on "any subject of science or art." The academy"s impact really grew after World WarⅡ, when a landmark report commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that it was the federal government"s responsibility to provide adequate funds for basic research—and that the nation"s universities were, by nature, best suited to take the lead. This turned out to be a brilliant policy. Instead of being centralized in government laboratories-d-as in other parts of the world—scientific research became decentralized in American universities and generated increasing investment. It also gave graduate students research opportunities and helped spread scientific discoveries far and wide, to the benefit of industry, medicine and society as a whole. (44)______. The end of World War Ⅱ saw passage of the Servicemen"s Readjustment Act of 1944, better known as the GI Bill of Rights. The law, which provided for college or vocational education for returning veterans, made an already democratic higher-education system accessible in ways that were inconceivable in Europe, opening the doors of the best universities to men and women who had never dreamed of going to college. (45)______. The creation of federal loan guarantees and subsidy programs, as well as outright grants for college students, brought much-needed diversity, to higher education and further helped to democratize access. Since its founding in 1965, the Federal Family Education Loan Program has funded more than 74 million student loans worth more than $180 billion. These five factors, coupled with private philanthropy, have helped foster the diversity, dynamism and competitiveness that make, American higher education the best—and most democratic—in the world. Enrollment in higher education grew from just 4 percent of the college-age population in 1900 to more than 65 percent by the end of the century.

If I Have an Introverted Friend Extroverts and introverts usually perform differently in their social lives. Extroverts get energized by being around people, while social activity, on the other hand, can exhaust introverts. Some people might think introverts is not easy-going and stay away from them, but that's misleading. If you have an introverted friend, what will you do? Write a composition of 160-200 words.

WhatIstheElectricityUsedfor?A.Studythechartcarefullyandwriteanessayof160-200words.B.Youressayshouldcoverthesetwopoints:1)whattheelectricityisusedfor2)possiblereasons

It seems unlikely that Andrew Speaker, the Atlanta lawyer who has been widely reviled for traveling by air after being diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis, infected anyone. Notably, both those who condemn Speaker"s recklessness and those who sympathize with him agree the relevant question is the danger he posed to other people, which was the justification for his forcible isolation in a Denver hospital. The case, of the TB-infected traveler helps clarify the grounds for government interventions aimed at preventing disease or injury. When Speaker left for his wedding and honeymoon in Europe on May 12, he knew he had a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis but did not know he had extensively drug-resistant(XDR)TB, a rare variety that"s very hard to treat. He had no fever, he was not coughing, and tests of his sputum found no TB bacteria. He says his doctors had assured him he was not contagious. According to Speaker, local public health officials, while recommending that he not fly, repeatedly told him he would not pose a significant threat to fellow passengers. That account is confirmed by Speaker"s father, who says he has an audio recording to prove it. While Speaker was in Rome, the CDC informed him he had XDR TB, told him he was on the U. S. "no fly" list, and recommended that he report to an Italian hospital for indefinite isolation. Knowing his best shot at successful treatment was in Denver, Speaker took a circuitous route home, flying to Montreal and driving across the U. S. border. Speaker and his family insist he never would have traveled if he thought he might transmit tuberculosis to others. In situations like this, there is room for argument about how to balance the safety of bystanders against the civil liberties of disease carriers. But at least in dealing with potentially deadly microorganisms that move from person to person, the rationale for government action is to prevent people from harming each other. By contrast, much of what passes for "public health" today is aimed at preventing people from harming themselves. Activists and politicians use the language of public health to legitimize government efforts to discourage a wide range of risky habits, including smoking, drinking, overeating, underexercising, gambling, driving a car without a seat belt, and riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Unlike tuberculosis, the risks associated with these activities are not imposed on people; they are voluntarily assumed. In a society that loses sight of that crucial distinction, the government has an open-ended license to meddle in what used to be considered private decisions. Anyone who exposes himself to the risk of disease or injury becomes a menace to public health.

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 live 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 front 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. Commoditised 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, al though 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.

[A]An Elemental Curriculum [B]Expectations of Early Teachers [C]Education as a Preparation for Working Life [D]Escalating Teacher Expectations [E]Teachers as Cleaners [F]Students Being Classroom Researchers [G]Teaching as a Mirror of Social faith In the late 1800s and early 1900s, teaching was very different from today. Rules for teachers at the time in the USA covered both the teacher' s duties and their conduct out of class as well. Teachers at that time were expected to set a good example to their pupils and to behave in a very virtuous and proper manner. Women teachers should not marry, nor should they "keep company with men". They had to wear long dresses and no bright colours and they were not permitted to dye their hair. No teachers were allowed to drink alcohol. They were allowed to read only good books such as the Bible? 【C1】______ As well as this long list of "dos" and "don'ts," teachers had certain duties to perform each day. In country schools, teachers were required to keep the coal bucket full for the classroom fire, and to bring a bucket of water each day for the children to drink. They had to make the pens for their students to write with and to sweep the floor and keep the classroom tidy. However, despite this list of duties, little was stipulated about the content of the teaching, nor about assessment methods. 【C2】______ Teachers would have been expected to teach the three "r"s—reading, writing and arithmetic, and to teach the children about Christianity and read from the Bible every day. Education in those days was much simpler than it is today and covered basic literacy skills and religious education. They would almost certainly have used corporal punishment such as a stick or the strap on naughty or unruly children. They would have been expected to sit quietly and to do their work, copying long rows of letters or doing basic maths sums. 【C3】______ Compare this with a country school in the USA today! If you visited today, you would see the children sitting in groups round large tables, or even on the floor. They would be working together on a range of different activities, and there would almost certainly be one or more computers in the classroom. Children nowadays are allowed and even expected to talk quietly to each other while they work, and they are also expected to ask their teachers questions and to actively engage in finding out information for themselves, instead of just listening to the teacher. 【C4】______ There are no rules of conduct for teachers out of the classroom, and they are not expected to perform caretaking duties such as cleaning the classrooms or making pens, but nevertheless their jobs are much harder than they were in the 1900s. Teachers today are expected to work hard on planning their lessons, to teach creatively and to stimulate children's minds, and there are strict protocols about assessment across the whole of the USA. 【C5】______ These changes in educational methods and ideas reflect changes in our society in general. Children in western countries nowadays come from all parts of the globe and they bring different cultures, religions and beliefs to the classroom. It is no longer considered acceptable or appropriate for state schools to teach about religious beliefs. Ideas about the value and purpose of education have also changed and with the increasing sophistication of workplaces and life skills needed for a successful career, the curriculum has also expanded to try to prepare children for the challenges of a diverse working community.

Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal—due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward. Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can"t stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at NCAR. One group, led by Gerald Meehl at NCAR, used two state-of-the-art climate models to explore what could happen if the world had held atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases steady since 2000. The results: Even if the world had slammed on the brakes five years ago, global average temperatures would rise by about 1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Sea levels would rise by another 4 inches over 20th-century increases. Rising sea-levels would continue well beyond 2100, even without adding water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The rise highlights the oceans" enormous capacity to absorb heat and its slow reaction to changes in atmospheric conditions. The team ran each model several times with a range of "what if" concentrations, as well as ob served concentrations, for comparison. Temperatures eventually level out, Dr. Meehl says in reviewing his team"s results. "But sea-level increases keep ongoing. The relentless nature of sea-level rise is pretty daunting." Dr. Wigley took a slightly different approach with a simpler model. He ran simulations that capped concentrations, at 2000 levels. If concentrations are held constant, warming could exceed 1.8 degrees F. by 2400. The two researchers add that far from holding steady, concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise. Thus, at best, the results point to the least change people can expect, they say. The idea that some level of global climate change from human activities is inevitable is not new. But the word has been slow to make its way into the broader debate. "Many people don"t realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea-level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future," Meehl says. While the concept of climate-change commitment isn"t new, these fresh results "tell us what"s possible and what"s realistic" and that for the immediate future, "prevention is not on the table," says Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. To Pielke and others, this means adaptation should be given a much higher priority that it"s received to date. "There"s a cultural bias in favor of prevention," he says. But any sound policy includes preparation as well, he adds. "We have the scientific and technological knowledge we need to improve adaptation and apply that knowledge globally."

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. Why is foreign text "rendered meaningless" when passed through an online translation tool? According to Sabine Reul, who runs a Frankfurt-based translation company, translation tools have limited uses, and problems arise when web users expect too much from them. "A translation tool works for some things," says Reul. "Say a British company wants to order a box of screws from a German supplier. A sentence like We need one box of a certain type of screw" is something that a machine could translate reasonably accurately—though primitively."B. Yet when it comes to translating blocks of text-words and sentences that convey thoughts and sentiments, online tools are bound to fail, she adds. "Beyond simple sentences, the online process simply doesn"t work because machines don"t understand grammar and semantics, never mind idiom and style." "Language is not a system of signs in the mechanical sense of the word", says Reul. "It is a living medium that is used to convey thought. And that is where machines fail. Human input is indispensable as long as computers cannot think." Reul and other translators look forward to the day when clever computers might help to ease their workload—but that time has not arrived yet.C. Earlier this month the small German town of Homberg-an-der-Efze, north of Frankfurt, had to pulp an entire print run of its English-language tourism brochure after officials used an Internet translating tool to translate the German text. According to one report, the brochure was "rendered meaningless" by the online tool. Martin Wagner, mayor of Homberg-an-der-Efze, admits that the town made a "blunder". As a result of officials trying to save money by getting the Internet to do a translator"s job, a total of 7500 brochures had to be binned.D. It would be nice if computers could do the job. And certainly the quest for machine translation has prompted a lot of linguistic research that may prove valuable in unforeseen ways. But experience to date confirms that even the most subtle computer program doesn"t think and you need to be able to think in order to translate."E. This story highlights some of the pitfalls of translating online. There are many instant translation tools on the web, but they are best used for individual words and short phrases, rather than for brochures, books or anything complex. For example, one of the joys of the web is that it grants you access to an array of foreign news sources. Yet if you were to use a translation tool to try to make sense of such reports, you could end up with a rather skewed and surreal view of the world.F. Until the dawn of thinking computers, online translation tools are best reserved for words, basic sentences and useful holiday phrase. For tourism brochures, newspaper reports and the rest, you will have to rely on some old-fashioned "human input".G. Relying on online translation tools can be a risky business, especially if you expect too much of it. For the time being, might translation be something best left to the humans?Order: G is the 1st paragraph, and F is the last.

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

How to Provide a Better Life for Senior Citizens?

Restrictions on the use of plastic bags have not been so successful in some regions. "White pollution" is still going on. Write a letter to the editor (s) of your local newspaper to give your opinions briefly and make two or three suggestions. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

The past few years have been busy ones for human-rights organisations. In prosecuting the so-called war on terror, many governments in Western countries where freedoms seemed secure have been tempted to nibble away at them, while doughty campaigners such as Amnesty International(国际特殊组织) also exist for defence. Yet Amnesty no longer makes the splash it used to in the rich world. The organisation is as vocal as it ever was. But some years ago it decided to dilute a traditional focus on political rights by mixing in a new category called social and economic rights. You might suppose that the more of rights you campaign for the better. Why not add pressing social and economic concerns to stuffy old political rights such as free speech and free elections? What use is a vote if you are starving? Are not access to jobs, housing, health care and food basic rights too? No: few rights are truly universal, and letting them multiply weakens them. Food, jobs and housing are certainly necessities, but there"s no use to call them "rights". When a government looks someone up without a fair trial, the victim, perpetrator and remedy are pretty clear. This clarity seldom applies to social and economic "rights". Who should be educated in which subjects for how long at what cost in taxpayers" money is a political question best settled at the ballot box(投票箱). And no economic system known to man guarantees a proper job for everyone all the time. It is hardly an accident that the countries keenest to use the language of social and economic rights tend to be those that show least respect for rights of the traditional sort. And it could not be further from the truth. For people in the poor world, as for people everywhere, the most reliable method yet invented to ensure that governments provide people with social and economic necessities are called politics. That is why the rights that make open polities possible—free speech, due process, protection from arbitrary punishment—are so precious. Insisting on their enforcement is worth more than any number of grandiloquent but unenforceable declarations demanding jobs, education and housing for all. Many do-gooding outfits suffer from having too broad a focus and too narrow a base. Amnesty used to appeal to people of all political persuasions and none, and concentrate on a hard core of well-defined basic liberties. However, by trying in recent years to borrow moral authority from the campaigns and leaders of the past and lend it to the cause of social reform, Amnesty has succeeded only in muffling what was once its central message, at the very moment when governments in the West need to hear it again.

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

At around 1. 65 million years ago, another early human, Homo ergaster, started to create tools in a slightly different fashion. This so-called Acheulean tradition was the tool-making technology used for nearly the entire Stone Age, and practiced until 100,000 years ago. Acheulean tools, such as hand axes and cleavers, were larger and more sophisticated than their predecessors". They may have been status symbols as well as tools. Homo ergaster first appeared in Africa around 2 million years ago, and in many ways resembled us. Though they had brow ridges, they had lost the stoop and long arms of their ancestors. They may have been even more slender than us and were probably well-adapted to running long distances. Some experts believe that they were the first to sport largely hairless bodies, and to sweat, though another theory puts our hairlessness down to an aquatic phase. One famous example of a more modern looking early human is the Turkana boy, a teenager when he died, 1. 6 million years ago in Kenya. The shape of this fossil showed that the human pelvis had reached today"s narrow proportions. Combined with the growing size of the human head and brain, this had far-reaching implications; human women now need help for a successful birth; and human babies are born earlier, and need a longer period of childhood care, than those of apes. Meat-eating, however, may have allowed us to become early weaners. H. ergaster may have been the first early human to leave Africa. Bones dated to around 1. 75 million years ago have been found in Dmanisi in Georgia. Shortly afterwards, Homo erectus appeared—the first early human whose fossils have been seen in large numbers outside of Africa. The first specimen discovered, a single cranium, was unearthed in Indonesia in 1891. H. erectus was highly successful, spreading to much of Asia between 1. 8 and 1. 5 million years ago, and surviving as recently as 27,000 years ago. This species, with a brain volume of around 1000 cm 3 would have interacted with modern humans. They may have been the first people to take to the seas and habitually hunt prey such as mammoths and wild horses, although there is some debate about this. They may also have harnessed the use of fire and built the first shelters. In 2004, the remains of a tiny and mysterious human species, that may have lived as recently as 13,000 years ago, was discovered on an Indonesian island. More bones of the "hobbit", or Homo floresiensis, were uncovered in 2005. Some studies suggest it had an advanced brain and was unequivocally a separate species—but others argue that these people were modern humans suffering from a genetic disorder.

You are going to read an article which is followed by a list of examples or headings. Choose the most suitable one from the list A-F for each numbered position(41-45). There may be certain extra which you do not need to use. (10 points)A. Different behaviors of the Internet addictsB. The finding of a research on the Internet addictsC. The Internet addiction may destroy a familyD. The establishment of a new service for web addictsE. Two examples of harm of the Internet addictionF. he Internet addiction may cause many problems It"s the equivalent of inviting sex addicts to a brothel or holding an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at the pub. Internet addicts tired of their square-eyed, keyboard tapping ways need look no further than the Web for counseling. (41)______. There is now an online counseling service at www.Relate.org.nz for Internet obsessives. Just email the details of your Internet-induced crisis and help comes direct to your inbox. The new breed of cyber-therapists see nothing strange about offering help through the very medium that is swallowing their clients" free time and splitting their marriages. (42)______. Though some may regard Internet addiction as another dubious ailment dreamed up to keep therapists in work, Relationship Services says the problem is real. Therapist Robin Paul says there tend to be two scenarios. Some people meet through chat rooms and fall in love. It"s like having an affair, then they meet and it"s like a whirlwind honeymoon. It"s devastating for the person left behind and quite often it has no real foundation. The second scenario is that a person starts spending more and more time on the Net. They may not meet someone else but they don"t spend any time with their partner and of course the relationship suffers. (43)______. Such stories may appear to be almost urban legends, so ashamed are Internet addicts and their partners. A recent survey of 17,251 Internet users found nearly 6 per cent had some sort of addiction to the medium. They revealed that their online habit contributed to disrupted marriages, childhood delinquency, crime and over-spending. Tap into online addiction sites and you"ll find messages such as: "Hello, my name is Bob and I"m a Webaholic." (44)______. Witness the plight of Ohio woman Kelli Michetti, who literally became a computer hacker because of her husband"s constant online chatting. When she crashed a meat cleaver through her husband"s computer terminal that solved the problem, although naturally it led to difficulties with the police. Or take the classic Internet addiction story of Ingrid Parker, a woman who became such a slave to the Internet—especially chat rooms—that it took over her life. She made do with two hours" sleep a night, had marathon weekend computer sessions of up to 17 hours and fell in love with a married man in the US state of Oregon. (45)______. Dr. Kimberly Young, who set up The Centre for Online Addiction (www.netaddiction.com) in America, studied 396 people whom she considered were psychologically dependent on the Net. They ranged in age from 14 to 70 and spent an average of 38.5 hours a week on the Web. Her study, backed by further research in Britain, found that women were more likely to become addicts. So while the old stereotypical addict was a young man who spent hours playing games, downloading software or reading messages on newsgroups, the new image is of a young woman who fritters away hours e-mailing friends, buying books and CDs online, talking in chat rooms and looking for information for next year"s holiday. "I guess I was a typical example of someone hooked on the Internet," says Parker, who now spends just an hour a day online. "I don"t think anyone who is married or in a sound relationship should really be spending hours talking to someone else and ignoring their nearest and dearest." While Parker provided her own therapy by putting her experiences down on paper, she recommends others take up the online counseling offer, or log off from the Worldwide Web gradually.