A Letter of Application for Study Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: You want to apply for admission to Washington University, but you can"t get all your materials ready before the stated deadline. Write a letter with your application materials to explain and to earn a chance for yourself. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Saudi Arabia, the oil industry"s swing producer, has become its flip-flopper. In February, it persuaded OPEC to cut its total production quotas by 1m barrels per day (bpd), to 23.5m, as a precaution against an oil-price crash this spring. That fear has since been replaced by its opposite. The price of West Texas crude hit $40 last week, its highest since the eve of the first Iraq war, prompting concerns that higher oil prices could sap the vigour of America"s recovery and compound the frailty of Europe"s. On Monday May 10th, Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia"s energy minister, called on OPEC to raise quotas, by at least 1.5m bpd, at its next meeting on June 3rd. Thus far, the high oil price has been largely a consequence of good things, such as a strengthening world economy, rather than a cause of bad things, such as faster inflation or slower growth. China"s burgeoning economy guzzled about 6m bpd in the first quarter of this year, 15% more than a year ago, according to Goldman Sachs. Demand was also strong in the rest of Asia, excluding Japan, growing by 5.2% to 8.1m bpd. As the year progresses, the seasonal rhythms of America"s drivers will dictate prices, at least of the lighter, sweeter crudes. Americans take to the roads en masse in the summer, and speculators are driving up the oil price now in anticipation of peak demand in a few months" time. Until recently, the rise in the dollar price of oil was offset outside America and China by the fall in the dollar itself. But the currency has regained some ground in recent weeks, and the oil price has continued to rise. Even so, talk of another oil-price shock is premature. The price of oil, adjusted for inflation, is only half what it was in December 1979, and the United States now uses half as much energy per dollar of output as it did in the early 1970s. But if oil cannot shock the world economy quite as it used to, it can still give it "a good kick", warns Goldman Sachs. If average oil prices for the year come in 10% higher than it forecast, it reckons CDP growth in the Group of Seven (CT) rich nations will be reduced by 0.3%, or $70 billion. The Americans are certainly taking the issue seriously. John Snow, their treasury secretary, called OPEC"s February decision "regrettable", and the rise in prices since then "not helpful". Washington pays close heed to the man at the petrol pump, who has seen the average price of a gallon of unleaded petrol rise by 39 cents in the past year. And the Saudis, some mutter, pay close heed to Washington. Besides, the high oil price may have filled Saudi coffers, but it has also affronted Saudi pride. Mr. al-Naimi thinks the high price is due to fears that supply might be disrupted in the future. These fears, he says, are "unwarranted". But the hulking machinery in the Arabian desert that keeps oil flowing round the world presents an inviting target to terrorists should they tire of bombing embassies and nightclubs. On May 1st, gunmen killed six people in a Saudi office of ABB Lummus Global, an American oil contractor. Such incidents add to the risk premium factored into the oil price, a premium that the Saudis take as a vote of no confidence in their kingdom and its ability to guarantee the supply of oil in the face of terrorist threats.

Among the class of new CEOs at struggling European technology giants, none will be more intriguing to watch in 2003 than Deutsche Telekom"s Kai-Uwe Ricke. He shares almost nothing with his flashy and argumentative predecessor from Sony, Ron Sommer, who had always remained something of an outsider in the notoriously political company. The son of a former Telekom chief, Ricke is a born insider. He inherits huge problems, including a huge debt load from years of splurging, a slow-growth business and a hierarchical company culture dating from when Telekom was an arm of the post office, a monolith with more staff than the German Army. For all Sommer"s talk about the New Economy, he built on the old tradition, controlling the company through a team of feared lieutenants. Sommer hired Ricke away from a competitor in 1998 to run the fast-growing conglomerate"s mobile-phone business. He soon came to see him as a potential successor and promoted him to chief operating officer in 2001. Ricke is emblematic of the next generation of European tech leaders. The challenge they face is to fix mistakes made during the boom years without discarding the enthusiasm and vision that accompanied them. Since taking over in November, Ricke has gotten rid of Sommer"s gang and put the heads of the company"s four main business divisions on Telekom"s management board. By loosening the grip of the CEO"s office on a company with 256,000 employees, he hopes to set the stage for a cultural revolution at Telekom. "I want a new leadership style," he told his top executives on Dec. 12, during a 10-hour sit-down in the "fishbowl", a round, glass-lined meeting room at the Bonn headquarters. "I want to encourage open and controversial discussion, but then I expect swift and speedy decisions." Ricke doesn"t have a lot of time. Telekom reported a loss of C 20.6 billion in the third quarter, the largest ever for a German company. Its stock price has fallen 90 percent from its peak in March 2000. Other, more experienced executives turned down offers to take the job, often because of political meddling in the company, of which the German government still owns about 43 percent. Some disillusioned investors see Ricke as part of the problem. "He shares responsibility for the mistakes of the past, so I have little hope that much will change," says Frank Heise, a fund manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt.

A Thank-you Letter for Hospitality Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: Last weekend you went to Brian"s home and enjoyed hospitality from his family. Now write a letter to thank him. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

A fundamental problem for understanding the evolution of human language has been the lack of significant parallels among nonhuman primates. Several studies found that nonhuman primates do not have a vocal tract. However, such points have been challenged by recent research, suggesting that nonhuman primates may after all be valuable models for understanding the evolution of speech and language. The main animal model for vocal learning has been birdsong acquisition. However, there are crucial differences between birdsong acquisition and human language learning. And given some severe limitations, for example, birds have two vocal organs and do not have the flexible supralaryn-geal structures that facilitate speech, of birdsong as a model of speech, there is value in seeking other appropriate parallels among mammals. Recent studies on macaques and baboons have shown that the vocal tracts of these monkeys can produce a full range of human-like vowels. Turn-taking is a key to fluent human conversation and has been thought to be unique to humans. One study found that captive chimpanzees increasingly share resources when resources are diminished. Collaborative turn-taking for food has been seen in other primates. These recent studies show that there is value in looking for the evolutionary origins of speech and language in nonhuman primates. Human speech and language are highly complex systems with multiple components. Thus, to fully explain language origins, researchers must seek multiple models that represent both diverging and converging evolutionary processes. There may also be differences among primate species in the developmental processes that parallel human language acquisition. However, no studies have yet described vowel-like sounds in these monkeys, so marmosets and tamarins may be useful primarily for developmental studies. It is probable that early humans faced evolutionary pressures that differed from those encountered by other primates and that have made our complex communication system adaptive. Language may have been important for coordinating activities in large cooperative groups. If individuals can thrive without complex vocal signaling, there would be little motivation to push the communication further. Different sensory and motor systems may be important. We tend to evaluate language through a vocal / auditory system, whereas research on apes is beginning to illustrate the complexity of gestural communication. Nonhuman primates do not talk, but we should not expect them to. Each species has its own adaptations for communication. Nevertheless, there is much about language evolution that we can learn from nonhuman primates, provided that we study a variety of species and consider the multiple components of speech and language.

For most of us, work is the central, dominating fact of life. We spend more than half our conscious hours at work, preparing for work, traveling to and from work. What we do there largely determines our standard of living and to a considerable extent the status we are accorded by our fellow citizens as Well. It is sometimes said that because leisure has become more important the indignities and injustices of work can be pushed into a corner; that because work is intolerable, the people who do it should compensate for its boredoms and frustrations by concentrating their hopes on the other part of their lives. I reject that as a counsel of despair. For the foreseeable future the material and psychological rewards which work can provide will continue to play a. vital part in determining the satisfaction that life can offer. Yet only a small minority can control the pace at which they work or the conditions in which their work is done; only for a small minority does work offer scope for creativity, imagination, or initiative. Inequality at work and in work still is one of the cruelest and most glaring forms of inequality in our society. We can not hope to solve the more obvious problems of industrial life, many of which arise directly or indirectly from the inequality at work. Still less can we hope to create a decent and humane society. The most glaring inequality is that between managers and the rest. For most managers, work is an opportunity and a challenge. Their jobs engage their interest and allow them to develop their abilities. They are able to exercise responsibility; they have a considerable degree of control over their own and the others" working lives. Most important of all, they have the opportunity to initiate. By contrast, for most manual workers, work is a boring, monotonous, even painful experience. They spend all their working lives in conditions which would be regarded as intolerable for themselves by those who take the decisions which let such conditions continue. The majority have little control over their work; it provides them with no opportunity for personal development. Often production is so designed that workers are simple part of the technology. In offices, many jobs are so routine that workers justifiably feel themselves to be mere cogs in the bureaucratic machine. As a direct consequence of their work experience, many workers feel alienated from their work and their firm, whether it is in public or in private ownership.

Studythefollowingtwopicturescarefullyandwriteanessayconcerninghonestyinthesocietyto1)describethepictures,2)illustratepresentsituationandgivepossiblereasons,and3)suggestcountermeasures.Youshouldwrite160-200wordsneatly.

Several years into a campaign to get kids to eat better and exercise more, child obesity rates have appeared to stabilize, and might be poised for a reversal. But a study published Monday in the journal PNAS suggests that among adolescents, the【C1】______signs are limited to those from better-educated, more【C2】______families. Among teens from poorer, less well-educated families, obesity has【C3】______to rise. That class-gap was not【C4】______in younger children. But as children neared【C5】______, the class differences became increasingly obvious. 【C6】______between rich and poor in obesity rates are not new, and they are only one of many health gaps that make poor patients sicker and more likely to die【C7】______than richer ones. But if the public health message on obesity "has not diffused【C8】______across the population," this gap could 【C9】______efforts to stem a tidal wave of【C10】______obesity-related diseases in the years ahead. Researchers from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government found that【C11】______activity may account largely for the【C12】______trend in obesity between rich and poor. If public health experts are to prevent childhood obesity and【C13】______drive down future obesity among adults, they'll have to figure out【C14】______less advantaged kids don't get as much exercise, the authors of the latest study say. Yes, lack of 【C15】______centers, playgrounds, and streets and sidewalks that【C16】______walking, biking and playing are important, they wrote. But, they added, "this is not the whole story." Among children with parents who【C17】______high on the socioeconomic scale, participation in high school sports and clubs has increased. But among their【C18】______from families of lower educational 【C19】______and income, such participation has【C20】______.

Canada' s premiers(the leaders of provincial governments), if they have any breath left after complaining about Ottawa at their late July annual meeting, might spare a moment to do something, together, to reduce health-care costs. They're all groaning about soaring health budgets, the fastest-growing component of which are pharmaceutical costs. 【C1】______. What to do? Both the Romanow commission and the Kirby committee on health care—to say nothing of reports from other experts—recommended the creation of a national drug agency. Instead of each province having its own list of approved drugs, bureaucracy, procedures and limited bargaining power, all would pool resources, work with Ottawa, and create a national institution. 【C2】______. But "national" doesn't have to mean that "National" could mean interprovincial—provinces combining efforts to create one body. Either way, one benefit of a "national" organization would be to negotiate better prices, if possible, with drug manufacturers. Instead of having one province—or a series of hospitals within a province— negotiate a price for a given drug on the provincial list, the national agency would negotiate on behalf of all provinces. Rather than, say, Quebec, negotiating on behalf of seven million people, the national agency would negotiate on behalf of 31 million people. Basic economics suggests the greater the potential consumers, the higher the likelihood of a better price. 【C3】______. A small step has been taken in the direction of a national agency with the creation of the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment, funded by Ottawa and the provinces. Under it, a Common Drug Review recommends to provincial lists which new drugs should be included. Predictably, and regrettably, Quebec refused to join. A few premiers are suspicious of any federal-provincial deal-making. They(particularly Quebec and Alberta)just want Ottawa to fork over additional billions with few, if any, strings attached. That's one reason why the idea of a national list hasn 't gone anywhere, while drug costs keep rising fast. 【C4】______. Premiers love to quote Mr. Romanow's report selectively, especially the parts about more federal money. Perhaps they should read what he had to say about drugs: "A national drug agency would provide governments more influence on pharmaceutical companies in order to try to constrain the ever-increasing cost of drugs." 【C5】______. So when the premiers gather in Niagara Falls to assemble their usual complaint list, they should also get cracking about something in their jurisdiction that would help their budgets and patients. [A]Quebec' s resistance to a national agency is provincialist ideology. One of the first advocates for a national list was a researcher at Laval University. Quebec's Drug Insurance Fund has seen its costs skyrocket with annual increases from 14.3 percent to 26.8 percent! [B]Or they could read Mr. Kirby's report: "the substantial buying power of such an agency would strengthen the public prescription-drug insurance plans to negotiate the lowest possible purchase prices from drug companies." [C]What does "national" mean? Roy Romanow and Senator Michael Kirby recommended a federal-provincial body much like the recently created National Health Council. [D]The problem is simple and stark: health-care costs have been, are, and will continue to increase faster than government revenues. [E]According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, prescription drug costs have risen since 1997 at twice the rate of overall health-care spending. Part of the increase comes from drugs being used to replace other kinds of treatments. Part of it arises from new drugs costing more than older kinds. Part of it is higher prices. [F]So, if the provinces want to run the health-care show, they should prove they can run it, starting with an interprovincial health list that would end duplication, save administrative costs, prevent one province from being played off against another, and bargain for better drug prices. [G]Of course, the pharmaceutical companies will scream. They like divided buyers; they can lobby better that way. They can use the threat of removing jobs from one province to another. They can hope that, if one province includes a drug on its list, the pressure will cause others to include it on theirs. They wouldn't like a national agency, but self-interest would lead them to deal with it.

Until I took Dr. Offutt" s class in DeMatha High School, I was an underachieving student, but I left that class【C1】______ never to underachieve again. He not only taught me to think, he convinced me, 【C2】______by example as words that it was my moral 【C3】______ to do so and to serve others. 【C4】______of us could know how our relationship would 【C5】______ over the years. When I came back to DeMatha to teach English, I worked for Dr. Offutt, the department chair. My discussions with him were like graduate seminars in adolesent【C6】______, classroom management and school leadership. After several years, I was【C7】______department chair, and our relationship【C8】______again. I thought that it might be【C9】______chairing the department, since all of my【C10】______English teachers were 【C11】______ there, but Dr. Offutt supported me 【C12】______ . He knew when to give me advice【C13】______curriculum, texts and personnel, and when to let me【C14】______ my own course. In 1997, I need his 【C15】______about leaving DeMatha to become principal at another school.【C16】______he had asked me to stay at DeMatha, I might have.【C17】______ , he encouraged me to seize the opportunity. Five years ago, I became the principal of DeMatha.【C18】______, Dr. Offutt was there for me, letting me know that I could【C19】______him. I"ve learned from him that great teachers have an inexhaustible【C20】______of lessons to teach.

With 950 million people, India ranks second to China among the most populous countries. But since China【C1】______a family planning program in 1971, India has been closing the【C2】______. Indians have reduced their birth rate but not nearly 【C3】______the Chinese have. If current growth rates continue, India" s population will【C4】______China" s around the year 2028【C5】______about 1.7 billion. Should that happen, it won"t be the【C6】______of the enlightened women of Kerala, a state in southern India.【C7】______ India as a whole adds almost 20 million people a year, Kerala"s population is virtually【C8】______. The reason is no mystery: nearly two-thirds of Kerala women practice birth control, 【C9】______about 40% in the entire nation. The difference【C10】______the emphasis put on health programs【C11】______birth control by the state authorities, 【C12】______in 1957 became India"s first elected Communist【C13】______ . And an educational tradition and matrilineal customs in parts of Kerala help girls and boys get 【C14】______good schooling. While one in three Indian women is【C15】______, 90% of those in Kerala can read and write. Higher literacy rates【C16】______family planning. "Unlike our parents, we know that we can do more for our children if we have【C17】______of them," says Laila Cherian, 33, who lives in the village of Kudamaloor. She has limited herself 【C18】______ three children—one below the national【C19】______of four. That kind of restraint will keep Kerala from putting added【C20】______on world food supplies.

For me, scientific knowledge is divided into mathematical sciences, natural sciences or sciences dealing with the natural world (physical and biological sciences), and sciences dealing with mankind (psychology, sociology, all the sciences of cultural achievements, every kind of historical knowledge). Apart from these sciences is philosophy, about which we will talk later. In the first place, all this is pure or theoretical knowledge, sought only for the purpose of understanding, in order to fulfill the need to understand that is intrinsic and con-substantial to man. What distinguishes man from animals is that he knows and needs to know. If man did not know that the world existed, and that the world was of a certain kind, that he was in the world and that he himself was of a certain kind, he wouldn"t be man. The technical aspects or applications of knowledge are equally necessary for man and are of the greatest importance, because they also contribute to defining him as man and permit him to pursue a life increasingly more truly human. But even while enjoying the results of technical progress, man must defend the primacy and autonomy of pure knowledge. Knowledge sought directly for its practical applications will have immediate and foreseeable success, but not the kind of important result whose revolutionary scope is for the most part unforeseen, except by the imagination of the Utopians. Let me recall a well-known example. If the Greek mathematicians had not applied themselves to the investigation of conic section zealously and without the least suspicion that it might someday be useful, it would not have been possible centuries later to navigate far from shore. The first men to study the nature of electricity could not imagine that their experiments, carried on because of mere intellectual curiosity, "would eventually lead to modern electrical technology, without which we can scarcely conceive of contemporary life. Pure knowledge is valuable for its own sake, because the human spirit cannot resign itself to ignorance. But, in addition, it is the foundation for practical results that would not have been reached if this knowledge had not been sought disinterestedly.

The Earth' s daily clock, measured in a single revolution, is twenty-four hours. The human clock,【B1】______, is actually about twenty-five hours. That' s 【B2】______ scientists who study sleep have determined from human subjects who live for several weeks in observation chambers with no【B3】______of day or night. Sleep researchers have 【B4】______ other surprising discoveries as well. We spend about one-third of our lives asleep, a fact that suggests sleeping, 【B5】______ eating and breathing, is a fundamental life process. Yet some people almost never sleep, getting by on as 【B6】______ as fifteen minutes a day. And more than seventy years of【B7】______into sleep deprivation, in which people have been kept【B8】______for three to ten days, has 【B9】______ only one certain finding: Sleep loss makes a person sleepy and that' s about all; it causes no lasting ill【B10】______. Too much sleep, however, may be【B11】______for you. These findings【B12】______some long-held views of sleep, and they【B13】______questions about its fundamental purpose in our lives. In【B14】______, scientists don't know just why sleep is necessary.. Some scientists think sleep is more the result of evolutionary habit than【B15】______actual need, Animals sleep for some parts of the day perhaps because it is the 【B16】______ thing for them to do: it keeps them【B17】______and hidden from predators; it's a survival tactic. Before the advent of electricity, humans had to spend at least some of each day in【B18】______and had little reason to question the reason or need for【B19】______. But the development of the electroencephalograph and the resulting discovery in 1937 of dramatic【B20】______in brain activity between sleep and wakefulness opened the way for scientific inquiry in the subject.

Suppose you are Li Ming. During the week long holiday, you joined a package tour organized by a travel agency to the city of Beijing. But when you got there, you found the services provided for you rather disappointing. Then you decided to writer a letter to the General Manager to 1) state your purpose of writing 2) complain about the services 3) and make some suggestions. You should write about 100 words, do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the ad dress.

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

You are going to read a text about choice, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list A—F for each numbered subheading (41—45). There is one extra example which you do not need to use. I strongly agree with the contention that absence of choice is a rare circumstance, primarily because this contention accords with common sense and our everyday experience as human beings. Besides, the reverse claim-that we do not have free choice-serves to undermine the notions of moral accountability and human equality, which are critical to the survival of any democratic society. (41) The role of free will of humans in choice Common sense dictates that humans have free will, and therefore the true absence of choice is very rare. The only possible exceptions would involve extreme and rare circumstances such as solitary imprisonment or a severe mental or physical deficiency—any of which might potentially strip a person of his or her ability to make conscious choices. Yet, even under these circumstances, a person still retains choices about voluntary bodily functions and movement. Thus, the complete absence of choice would seem to be possible only in a comatose state or in death. (42) The nature of absence of choice People often claim that life"s circumstances leave them with "no choice". One might feel trapped in a job or a marriage. Under financial duress a person might claim that he or she has "no choice" but to declare bankruptcy, take a demeaning job, or even lie or steal to obtain money. The fundamental problem with these sorts of claims is that the claimants are only considering those choices that are not viable or attractive. That is, people in situations such as these have an infinite number of choices; it"s just that many of the choices are unappealing, even self-defeating. (43) Choice is beyond our control Besides, the contention that we are almost invariably free to choose is far more appealing from a sociopolitical standpoint than the opposite claim. A complete tack of choice implies that every person"s fate is determined, and that we all lack free will. According to the philosophical school of "strict determinism", every event, including human actions and Choices, that occurs is physically necessary given the laws of nature and events that preceded that event or choice. In other words, the "choices" that seem part of the essence of our being are actually beyond our control. (44) The logical result of strict determinism and of the new "scientific determinism" However, the logical result of strict determinism and of the new "scientific determinism" is that we are not morally accountable for our actions and choices, even those that harm other individuals or society. Moreover, throughout history monarchs and dictators have embraced determinism, at least ostensibly, to bolster their claim that certain individuals are preordained to assume positions of authority or to rise to the top levels of the socioeconomic infrastructure. Finally, the notion of scientific determinism opens the door for genetic engineering, which poses a potential threat to equality in socioeconomic opportunity, and could lead to the development of a so-called "master race". Admittedly, these disturbing implications neither prove nor disprove the determinists" claims. (45) Insistence of tree will I would concede that science might eventually disprove the very notion of free will. However, until that time I"ll trust my strong intuition that free will is an essential part of our being as humans and, accordingly, that humans are responsible for their own choices and actions.A. For example, almost every person who claims to be trapped in a job is simply choosing to retain a certain measure of financial security. The choice to forego this security is always available, although it might carry unpleasant consequences.B. Our collective life experience is that we make choices and decisions every day on a continual basis.C. However, the dilemma seams to be unavoidable which gives people a lot of painfully experience with it.D. In sum, despite the fact that we all experience occasional feelings of being trapped and having no choice, the statement is fundamentally correct.E. Recent advances in molecular biology and genetics lend some credence to the determinists" position that as physical beings our actions are determined by physical forces beyond our control. New research suggests that these physical forces include our own individual genetic makeup.F. Assuming that neither free will nor determinism has been proven to be the correct position, the former is to be preferred by any humanist and in any democratic society.

StudythefollowinggraphcarefullyandwriteanessayconcerningtheprevalentuseofTVadsbyproducersto1)describethegraph,2)analyzethereasonsofthisphenomenon,and3)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwrite160-200wordsneatly.

Mark Twain once observed that giving up smoking is easy. He knew, because he"d done it hundreds of times himself. Giving up for ever is a trifle more difficult, apparently, and it is well known that it is much more difficult for some people than for others. Why is this so? Few doctors believe any longer that it is simply a question of will power. And for those people that continue to view addicts as merely "weak", recent genetic research may force a rethink. A study conducted by Jacqueline Vink, of the Free University of Amsterdam, used a database called the Netherlands Twin Register to analyze the smoking habits of twins. Her results, published in the Pharmacogenomics Journal, suggest that an individual"s degree of nicotine dependence, and even the number of cigarettes he smokes per day, are strongly genetically influenced. The Netherlands Twin Register is a voluntary database that contains details of some 7,000 pairs of adult twins (aged between 15 and 70) and 28,000 pairs of childhood twins. Such databases are prized by geneticists because they allow the comparison of identical twins (who share all their genes) with fraternal twins (who share half). In this case, however, Dr. Vink did not make use of that fact. For her, the database was merely a convenient repository of information. Instead of comparing identical and fraternal twins, she concentrated on the adult fraternal twins, most of whom had completed questionnaires about their habits, including smoking, and 536 of whom had given DNA samples to the register. The human genome is huge. It consists of billions of DNA "letters", some of which can be strung together to make sense (the genes) but many of which have either no function, or an unknown function, To follow what is going on, geneticists rely on markers they have identified within the genome. These are places where the genetic letters may vary between individuals. If a particular variant is routinely associated with a particular physical feature or a behavior pattern, it suggests that a particular version of a nearby gene is influencing that feature or behavior. Dr. Vink found four markers which seemed to be associated with smoking. They were on chromosomes 3, 6, 10 and 14, suggesting that at least four genes are involved. Dr. Vink hopes that finding genes responsible for nicotine dependence will make it possible to identify the causes of such dependence. That will help to classify smokers better (some are social smokers while others are physically addicted) and thus enable "quitting" programs to be customized. Results such as Dr. Vink"s must be interpreted with care. Association studies, as such projects are known, have a disturbing habit of disappearing, as it were, in a puff of smoke when someone tries to replicate them. But if Dr. Vink really has exposed a genetic link with addiction, then Mark Twain"s problem may eventually become a thing of the past.

To Buy or to Rent? A. Title: To Buy or to Rent? B. Word limit: 160-200 words (not including the given opening sentence) C. Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: "Today, the rocketing housing price has made it a huge burden for lots of people to possess a house." OUTLINE: 1. A general description of the present situation 2. People"s different views 3. My opinion

Opinion polls are now beginning to show that whoever is to blame, and whatever happens from now on, high unemployment is probably here to stay. This means we shall have to find ways of sharing the available employment more widely. But we need to go further. We must ask some fundamental questions about the future of work. Should we continue to threat employment as the norm? Should we not rather encourage many other ways for self-respecting people to work? Should we not create conditions in which many of us can work for ourselves, rather than for an employer? Should we not aim to revive the household and the neighborhood, as well as the factory and the office, as centers of production and work? The industrial age has Been the only period of human history in which most people"s work has taken the form of jobs. (46) The industrial age may now be coming to an end, and some of the changes in work patterns which it brought max have to be reversed. This seems a daunting(令人气馁的)thought. But, in fact, it could offer the prospect of a better future for work. Universal employment, as its history shows, has no meant economic freedom. (47) Employment became widespread when the enclosures of the 17th and the 18th centuries made many people dependent on paid work by depriving them of the use of land, and thus of the means to provide a living for themselves. Then the factory system destroyed the cottage industries and removed work from people"s homes. (48) Later t as transport improved, first by rail and then by boat, people commuted longer distances to their places of employment until, eventually, many people"s work lost all connection with their home lives and the places in which they lived. Meanwhile, employment put women at a disadvantage. In pre-industrial times, men and women had shared the productive work of the household and village community. Now it became customary for the husband to go out to paid employment, leaving the unpaid work of the home and family to his wife. Tax and benefit regulations still assume this norm today, and restrict more flexible sharing of work roles between the sexes. It was not only women whose work status suffered. (49) As employment became the dominant form of work, young people and old people were excluded; a problem now, as more teenagers become frustrated at school and more retired people want to live active lives. All this may now have to change. (50) The time has certainly come to switch some effort and resources away from the idealist goal of creating jobs for all, to urgent practical task of helping many people to manage without full-time jobs.