Productivity is the yardstick by which socioeconomic revolutions are measured. Plows initiated the agrarian revolution by greatly improving the productivity of farmers. Engines, and (1)_____ electricity, (2)_____ the industrial revolutions by (3)_____ improving the productivity of workers in manufacturing and transportation. If there is to be a true in formation revolution, then computers will have to (4)_____ the pattern with information and information work. Information technology has (5)_____ begun to improve productivity, and it has even hurt it in some cases; it takes longer to wade (6)_____ those endless automated phone answering menus (7)_____ it does to talk to a human operator. (8)_____, productivity will rise (9)_____ computers and communications are used in the Information Marketplace to relieve people of brain work (10)_____ industrial machinery relieved us of physical work. The Information Marketplace will give (11)_____ to two great new forces that will drive (12)_____ in the twenty-first century. (13)_____, most people and companies buy new computers because the hardware has faster processors or more storage capacity, or because it is fashionable to own a new model, (14)_____ because competitors have bought them and "we can"t afford to fall behind." Imagine the (15)_____ of a company buying a new device be cause the motor turns at a higher (16)_____, or because it"s in vogue to do so, or because the competition just bought that model (17)_____ of whether the machine can move any more earth in an hour! Let"s explore how the Information marketplace might help us in the (18)_____ quest to get more results for less (19)_____. To do this, we will first examine a series of "faults"—ways in which computer technology is (20)_____ today, because of either technological or human weaknesses. Correcting these faults will be the first step toward increasing our productivity. Making the Information Marketplace easier to use will be the second step.

About two thousand years ago, the Celts were still in their primitive society and Britain was still covered with dense forests and swamps. They knew nothing of a written language, although they could utter different sounds to exchange simple ideas. But the Celts created their own civilization of which the most shining example was the historical Stonehenge in Wiltshire. The Stonehenge, still in existence now, was a circular arrangement of monoliths built by the ancient Britons for purposes still unknown to modern historians. The Celtic language didn"t disappeared completely, either. Some of the Celtic words or sounds were later assimilated into the English language. Some people in Scotland and Wales now still speak a language of Celtic origin. It is believed that the Celts were related with the ancient people in what is now France and they, perhaps, offered some help in the struggle to resist Julius Caesar when he invaded France. The Roman army, commanded by Julius Caesar, invaded England in the first century B.C. In the first Century A.D., the Romans went across the English Channel and invaded Britain for the second time. They did not meet with much resistance on the part of the natives and soon got possession of what is now known as England by driving many of the native Celts to mountainous Scotland and Wales. The Romans brought other things with them besides their swords. They introduced their Roman civilization into England. They built towns, temples, theatres and fane buildings, better ones than the Britons had ever dreamed of. They drained marshes, cleared away forests, built roads and taught the Britons to cultivate their land in a better way. They introduced a system of organized government in towns, which usually took on names ending in "shire". They remained in England for about 350 years until 410 A.D. when the Germanic races started invading Rome. The invasion made it necessary to withdraw the Roman soldiers from England to defend their home country. The island of Britain was again returned to the control of the native inhabitants. But the natives had been ruled and protected so long by the Roman troops that they did not know how to protect themselves, the island, therefore, became a tempting and easy prey to the tribes within easy reach. Invaders from Ireland and Scotland began to plunder and kill the weak and defenseless Britons in England. The Britons hardly knew what to do and they, in despair, asked the Romans to send back their soldiers to protect them Rome could not do this as she had more serious business on hand. Just at this time, a band of newcomers landed in the southern part of England, in what is now the county of Kent. These newcomers were known in history as the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons who had come from Northern Europe. They were aggressive rovers and pirates ready to plunder or to fight. To them the Britons turned for assistance. They asked the newcomers to join in the war against their fierce neighbors. The result was a victory for the combined Britons and Anglo-Saxons.

Title: LIVING IN A SMALL TOWNWord limit: 160-200 wordsTime limit: 40 minutesYou are required to develop your essay according to the given topic sentence of each paragraph. 1. There are at least three major advantages to living in a small town. The first is the ease with which a person can get around. 2. The second advantage is the low cost of living. 3. The greatest benefit of small-town life is the friendliness.

When prehistoric man arrived in new parts of the world, something strange happened to the large animals: they suddenly became extinct. Smaller species survived. The large, slow-growing animals were easy game, and were quickly hunted to extinction. Now something similar could be happening in the oceans. That the seas are being overfished has been known for years. What researchers such as Ransom Myers and Boris Worm have shown is just how fast things are changing. They have looked at half a century of data from fisheries around the world. Their methods do not attempt to estimate the actual biomass(the amount of living biological matter)of fish species in particular parts of the ocean, but rather changes in that biomass over time. According to their latest paper published in Nature, the biomass of large predators(animals that kill and eat other animals)in a new fishery is reduced on average by 80% within 15 years of the start of exploitation. In some long-fished areas, it has halved again since then. Dr. Worm acknowledges that these figures are conservative . One reason for this is that fishing technology has improved. Today' s vessels can find their prey using satellites and sonar, which were not available 50 years ago. That means a higher proportion of what is in the sea is being caught, so the real difference between present and past is likely to be worse than the one recorded by changes in catch sizes. In the early days, too, longlines would have been more saturated with fish. Some individuals would therefore not have been caught, since no baited hooks would have been available to trap them, leading to an underestimate of fish stocks in the past. Furthermore, in the early days of longline fishing, a lot of fish were lost to sharks after they had been hooked. That is no longer a problem, because there are fewer sharks around now. Dr. Myers and Dr. Worm argue that their work gives a correct baseline, which future management efforts must take into account. They believe the data support an idea current among marine biologists, that of the "shifting baseline." The notion is that people have failed to detect the massive changes which have happened in the ocean because they have been looking back only a relatively short time into the past. That matters because theory suggests that the maximum sustainable yield that can be cropped from a fishery comes when the biomass of a target species is about 50% of its original levels. Most fisheries are well below that, which is a bad way to do business.

With the publication of "On the Origin of Species" by Means of Natural Selection, Charles Darwin in 1859 showed conclusively that species evolved and were not immutable over time.【F1】 This revolutionary idea permitted an explanation of the fossil record that did not need to invoke the Biblical story of the Flood or the view that all extinct animals and plants had perished as a result of this one global catastrophe. It became possible to compare modern and fossil animals and to construct lineages through time that documented the changes that had occurred, and the distribution of fossil forms began to take on new significance. It became apparent that assemblages of fossils betray climatic preferences at any given time and climatic change through time.【F2】 Another 12 years elapsed before Darwin applied his theory of evolution—and its mechanism, natural selection acting upon a pool of normal biological variation—to the case of man; the delay more likely was because of lack of fossil evidence than lack of courage. 【F3】 The so-called Darwinian tautology, "The survival of the fittest is the survival of those best fitted to survive", gives an insight into the adaptations of living organisms that lead to an increase in their chances of survival and of leaving more offspring than their rivals. The closer the adaptation to the environment, the greater the chances of survival. This pathway leads to specialization: fish need water in which to swim, birds need wings with which to fly, koalas need eucalyptus leaves to eat—nothing else will do. This approach to survival has its advantages but also its drawbacks.【F4】 Should the environment change suddenly, those who have gambled on specialization may lose, while those who have retained a generalized form and remained adaptable can adjust to the new situation and survive. 【F5】 On the whole, the order of Primates, which contains humans and their ancestors, has retained this approach, an evolutionary flexibility that has enabled primates to respond to change when it has arisen.

The success of Augustus owed much to the character of Roman theorizing about the state. The Romans did not produce ambitious blueprints 【B1】______ the construction of ideal states, such as【B2】______to the Greeks. With very few exceptions, Roman theorists ignored, or rejected 【B3】______ valueless, intellectual exercises like Plato' s Republic, in 【B4】______ the relationship of the individual to the state was 【B5】______ out painstakingly without reference to 【B6】______ states or individuals.The closest the Roman came to the Greek model was Cicero' s De Re Publica, and even here Cicero had Rome clearly in【B7】______. Roman thought about the state was concrete, even when it【B8】______religious and moral concepts. The first ruler of Rome, Romulus, was【B9】______to have received authority from the gods, specifically from Jupiter, the "guarantor" of Rome. All constitutional【B10】______was a method of conferring and administering the【B11】______. Very clearly it was believed that only the assembly of the【B12】______, the family heads who formed the original senate,【B13】______the religious character necessary to exercise authority, because its original function was to【B14】______the gods. Being practical as well as exclusive, the senators moved【B15】______to divide the authority, holding that their consuls, or chief officials, would possess it on【B16】______months, and later extending its possession to lower officials.【B17】______the important achievement was to create the idea of continuing【B18】______authority embodied only temporarily in certain upper-class individuals and conferred only【B19】______the mass of the people concurred. The system grew with enormous【B20】______, as new offices and assemblies were created and almost none discarded.

If soldiering was for the money, the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Special Boat Service (SBS) would have disintegrated in recent years. Such has been the explosion in private military companies (PMCs) that they employ an estimated 30,000 in Iraq alone—and no government can match their fat salaries. A young SAS trooper earns about￡ 2,000($3,500) a month; on the "circuit", as soldiers call the private world, he could get ￡15,000. Why would he not? For reasons both warm-hearted and cool-headed. First, for love of regiment and comrades, bonds that tend to be tightest in the most select units. Second, for the operational support, notably field medicine, and the security, including life assurance and pension, that come with the queen"s paltry shilling. Although there has been no haemorrhaging of special force (SF) fighters to the private sector, there has been enough of a trickle to cause official unease. A memo recently circulated in the Ministry of Defence detailed the loss of 24 SF senior non-commissioned officers to private companies in the past year. All had completed 22 years of service, and so were eligible for a full pension, and near the end of their careers. Yet there is now a shortage of hard-bitten veterans to fill training and other jobs earmarked for them, under a system for retaining them known as "continuance". America has responded to the problem by throwing cash at it, offering incentives of up to $150,000 to sign new contracts. The Ministry of Defence has found a cheaper ploy. It has spread the story of two British PMC employees, recently killed in Iraq, whose bodies were left rotting in the sun.

Studyingthefollowingpicturescarefullyandwriteanessayin160—200words.Youressaymustbewrittenclearlyandyouressayshouldcoverthesepoints:1)Describethetrend2)Andgiveyourcomments.

On behalf of the organizing committee, please write a welcome letter of about 100 words to welcome the newcomer to Chinese History Association.You should include the details you think necessary.You should write neatly on the ANSWER SHEET.Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead.Do not write the address.

When you ask young person to tell the names of some famous movies and the chances are that many of those mentioned will be popular because of computer-generated special effects. Some movies such as "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter" rely heavily on computers to create special fantasy and space effects. 【C1】______However, genuinely "human" characters, indistinguishable from real actors, are still not quite possible, although we are getting very close to this elusive goal. The process of imagining and developing a computer-generated character is complex, involving many stages. The first stage is to design the look of the character, and to create a three-dimensional model on the computer. 【C2】______One way to achieve this is by building a real skeleton of the model. After using lasers to scan the real model into the computer, controls are added that allow the bones and muscles to be moved around. This is where computer animation comes in. Because people are so conscious of how "real" faces look, many detailed controls are needed on the computer to move the different features of the face. 【C3】______One way of achieving this is called motion capture, where a person acts out the character, and his movements are captured by video camera and uploaded into the computer.【C4】______These methods are often used together in creating an animated character; both of them are slow and painstaking, requiring hours of effort and planning. Enormous computer power is needed to make? 【C5】______There were up to 160 people working on computer graphics for these three movies, which took approximately【B4】______million processing hours. It is estimated that the same process would have taken up to 200 years on a 4-gigahertz PC! However, despite all of this extremely sophisticated and expensive technology, creating a real human face is still a challenge for our animators. People are very sensitive to facial expressions. We can immediately pick if a face is not human, and we often have a strong reaction to this. The closer the face is to looking truly human, the more negative this reaction can be; this effect has been christened the "uncanny valley" by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori. [A]However, most experts also advised that once the animation gets close enough to the real thing, we begin to feel positive about it once more. So, maybe future Tom Cruises or Lindsay Lohans will be computer generated, and we will never know the difference. [B]The model must be able to move in a realistic manner and, most importantly, its face must mirror human faces when it laughs, frowns or talks. [C]Others, such as the famous "Lord of the Rings" movies, created surprisingly lifelike humanoid characters using sophisticated computer-generated techniques. The creative effort that lies behind these creatures is amazing. [D]Another way is key-frame animation, where, instead of modeling actions from a real person, the animators use the controls to move all of the parts of the body and face to create movement on the screen. [E]Enormous computer is needed to make animation look real. For the "Lord of the Rings", thousands of processors and numerous workstations were used to create all of the characters and special effects. [F]Up to a hundred may be needed to move the muscles of the face, so that the character' s eyes, skin, mouth and other features all look natural to our eyes. After designing all of the components of the face and body, and the computer controls, the character is ready to move, or be animated. [G]The real movie stars strive for improving their action so that they can attain more and more fans and become more famous, then enhance their appearance fee.

You have been asked to write a report on water-saving issue to the administrative committee of the university. Task: As a volunteer, write a one-paragraph report in about 100 words on the main findings of your personal check-up of the water supply facilities on campus. Include what you consider to be the best measures to effectively correct the situation.

In the next century we"ll be able to alter our DNA radically, encoding our visions and vanities while concocting new life-forms. When Dr. Frankenstein made his monster, he wrestled with the moral issue of whether he should allow it to reproduce, "Had I the right, for my own benefit, to inflict the curse upon everlasting generations?" Will such questions require us to develop new moral philosophies? Probably not. Instead, we"ll reach again for a time-tested moral concept; one sometimes called the Golden Rule and which Kant, the millennium"s most prudent moralist, conjured up into a categorical imperative, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; treat each person as an individual rather than as a means to some end. Under this moral precept we should recoil at human cloning, because it inevitably entails using humans as means to other humans" ends and valuing them as copies of others we loved or as collections of body parts, not as individuals in their own right. We should also draw a line, however fuzzy, that would permit using genetic engineering to cure diseases and disabilities but not to change the personal attributes that make someone an individual (IQ, physical appearance, gender and sexuality). The biotech age will also give us more reason to guard our personal privacy. Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, got it wrong: rather than centralizing power in the hands of the state, DNA technology has empowered individuals and families. But the state will have an important role, making sure that no one, including insurance companies, can look at our genetic data without our permission or use it to discriminate against us. Then we can get ready for the breakthroughs that could come at the end of the next century and the technology is comparable to mapping our genes: plotting the 10 billion or more neurons of our brain. With that information we might someday be able to create artificial intelligences that think and experience consciousness in ways that are indistinguishable from a human brain. Eventually we might be able to replicate our own minds in a "dry-ware" machine, so that we could live on without the "wet-ware" of a biological brain and body. The 20th century"s revolution in infotechnology will thereby merge with the 21st century"s revolution in biotechnology. But this is science fiction. Let"s turn the page now and get back to real science.

The first time Tom Kiklas saw an electronic cigarette, he recalls, "I couldn"t stand it.. . I thought, "I don"t want to be involved in this. " I"m an anti-smoking kind of guy. " But after Kiklas realized that electronic cigarettes, a. k. a. e-cigarettes, deliver nicotine without tobacco or combustion products, thereby eliminating virtually all of the health hazards associated with smoking, he was comfortable becoming media relations director for inLife, one of the companies that sell the devices in the United States. Unfortunately, many anti-smoking activists and public health officials are stuck in that first stage of visceral antipathy toward anything that resembles cigarettes, an emotional reaction that could prove deadly for smokers. Introduced by the Chinese company Ruyan in 2004, e-cigarettes produce water vapor containing nicotine and the food additive propylene glycol. The tip of the battery-powered "cigarette" lights up when a user sucks on it, and the vapor looks like smoke, but it dissipates immediately and contains none of the toxins and carcinogens that are generated when tobacco burns. Given the enormous differences between this vapor and tobacco smoke, the companies that sell e-cigarettes online and from shopping mall kiosks are on firm ground in advertising them as safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes that can be used in places where smoking is banned. The arguments of e-cigarette opponents, by contrast, reek of red herrings . The critics warn that nicotine is addictive, that it may contribute to cardiovascular problems, and that smokers may use e-cigarettes as way of coping with smoking bans, continuing their habits instead of quitting. All of these objections also apply to the nicotine gum, patches, sprays, and inhalers the FDA has approved as safe and effective smoking cessation tools. E-cigarettes are less expensive than those products and may be more appealing to smokers looking for an experience that"s closer to the real thing. Although they have not been subject to the sort of rigorous testing the FDA demands for new drugs, the drug they contain is not new. It"s the same one delivered, in a much dirtier manner, by the cigarettes that the government says kill 400,000 Americans every year. "The standard for lower-risk products for use by current smokers," argues the American Association of Public Health Physicians, "should be the hazard posed by cigarettes, not a pharmaceutical safety standard. " Telling smokers they may not use e-cigarettes until they"re approved by the FDA is like telling a floundering swimmer not to climb aboard a raft because it might have a leak.

In addition, changes made to the construction codes in Los Angeles during the last 20 years have strengthened the city" s buildings and highways, making them more resistant to quakes.

The topic of cloning has been a politically and ethically controversial one since its very beginning. While the moral and philosophical aspects of the issues are entirely up to the interpretation of the individual, the application of cloning technology can be studied objectively. Many in the scientific community advocate the use of cloning for the preservation and support of endangered species of animals, which aside from cloning, have no other practical hope for avoiding extinction. The goal of the use of cloning to avoid extinction is the reintroduction of new genes into the gene pool of species with few survivors, ensuring the maintenance and expansion of genetic diversity. Likely candidates for this technique are species known to have very few surviving members, such as the African Bongo Antelope, the Sumatran Tiger, and the Chinese Giant Panda. In the case of Giant Panda, some artificial techniques for creating offspring have already been performed, perhaps paving the way for cloning as the next step in the process. With the estimated population of only about 1000 Giant Pandas left in the world, the urgency of the situation has led to desperate measures. One panda was born through the technique of artificial insemination in the San Diego Zoo in the United States. "Hua Mei" was born in 1999 after her parents, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, had trouble conceiving naturally. The plan to increase the Giant Panda population through the use of cloning involves the use of a species related to the Giant Panda, the American Black Bear. Egg cells will be removed from female black bears and then fertilized with Panda cells such as those from Ling-Ling or Hsing-Hsing. The fertilized embryo will then re-implanted into the black bear, where it will grow and mature, until a new panda is delivered from the black bear host. Critics of cloning technology argue that the emphasis on cloning as a method by which to preserve species will draw funding away from other methods, such as habitat preservation and conservation. Proponents of cloning counter that many countries in which many endangered species exist are too poor to protect and maintain the species" habitats anyway, making cloning technology the only practical way to ensure that those species survive to future generations. The issue is still hotly debated, as both sides weigh the benefits that could be achieved against the risks and ethical concerns that constantly accompany any argument on the issue.Notes:ethically 道德上。gene pool 基因库。insemination n.受精。fertilize 使受精。embryo 胚胎。proponent支持者，拥护者。weigh A against B权衡A和B的利弊。

With increasing prosperity, Western European youth is having a fling that is creating distinctive consumer and cultural patterns. The result has been the increasing emergence in Europe of that phenomenon well known in America as the "youth market."【C1】______ In Western Europe, the youth market may appropriately be said to be in its infancy.【C2】______.Some manifestations of the market, chiefly sociological, have been recorded, but it is only just beginning to be the subject of organized consumer research and promotion. Characteristics of the evolving European youth market indicate dissimilarities as well as similarities to the American youth market. The market's basis is essentially the same — more spending power and freedom to use it in the hands of teenagers and older youth. Young consumers also make up an increasingly high proportion of the population. 【C3】______.Generally it now is difficult to tell in which direction trans-Atlantic teenage influences are flowing. Also, a pattern of conformity dominates European youth as in this country, though in Britain the object is to wear clothes that "make the wearer stand out," but also make him "in" , such as tight trousers and precisely tailored jackets. Worship and emulation of "idols" in the entertainment field, especially the "pop" singers and other performers is pervasive. There is also the same exuberance and unpredictability in sudden fad switches. In Paris, buyers of stores catering to the youth market carefully watch what dress is being worn by a popular television teenage singer to be ready for a sudden demand for copies. In Stockholm other followers of teenage fads call the youth market "attractive but irrational." 【C4】______.In the European youth market, unlike that of the United States, it is the working youth who provides the bulk of purchasing power. On the average, the school-finishing age still tends to be 14 years. This is the maximum age to which compulsory education extends, and with Europe's industrial manpower shortage, thousands of teenage youths may soon attain incomes equal in many cases to that of their fathers. 【C5】______. In Europe, an average is about $ 5 to $ 10 a month. Working youth, consequently, are the big spenders in the European youth market, but they also have less leisure than those staying on at school, who have less buying power. [A] In some countries such as Britain, West Germany and France, it is more advanced than in others. [B] In terms of volume and variety of sales, the market in Europe is only a shadow of its American counterpart, but it is a growing shadow. [C] This is a market in which enterprising businesses cater to the demands of teenagers and older youths in all their rock mania and pop-art forms. [D] But there are also these important dissimilarities generally with the American youth market [E] As in the United States, youthful tastes in Europe extend over a similar range of products-records and record players, transistor radios, leather jackets and "way out," extravagantly styled clothing, cosmetics and soft drinks. [F] The most obvious differences between the youth market in Europe and that in the United States is in size. [G] Although, because of general prosperity, European youths are beginning to continue school studies beyond the compulsory maximum age, they do not receive anything like the pocket money or "allowances" of American teenagers.

Your company intends to purchase some car parts. Now it has received a fax offer (传真报价单). Write a letter to the sales department of a car parts company to express your: 注: Should this transaction prove to be successful是虚拟条件句的省略形式，也可以写为If this transaction should prove to be successful。 1) thanks for the fax offer, 2) willingness to accept all the terms except price, and 3) request of reduction in price. 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 address.

Does using a word processor affect a writer s style? The medium usually does do something to the message after all, even if Marshall McLuhan"s claim that the medium simply is the message has been heard and largely forgotten now. The question matters. Ray Hammond, in his excellent guide The Writer and the Word Processor, predicts that over half the professional writers in Britain and the USA will be using word processors by the end of 1985. The best known recruit is Leu Deighton, from as long ago as 1968, though most users have only started since the microcomputer boom began in 1980. Ironically word processing is in some ways psychologically more like writing in rough than typing, since it restores fluidity and provisionality to the text. The typist"s dread of having to get out the Tippex, the scissors and paste, or of redoing the whole thing if he has any substantial second thoughts, can make him consistently choose the safer option in his sentences, or let something stand which he knows to be unsatisfactory or incomplete, out of weariness. In word processing the text is loosened up whilst still retaining the advantage of looking formally finished. This has, I think, two apparently contradictory effects. The initial writing can become excessively sloppy and careless, in the expectation that it will be corrected later. That crucial first inspiration is never easy to recapture, though, and therefore, on the other hand, the writing can become over-deliberated, lacking in flow and spontaneity, since revision becomes a larger part of composition. However, these are faults easier to detect in others than in oneself. My own experience of the sheer difficulty of committing any words at all to the page means I"m grateful for all the help I can get. For most writers, word processing quite rapidly comes to feel like the ideal method (and can always be a second step after drafting on paper if you prefer). Most of the writers interviewed by Hammond say it has improved their style ("immensely", says Deighton). Seeing your own word on a screen helps you to feel cool and detached about them. Thus is not just by freeing you from-the labor of mechanical retyping that a word processor can help you to write. One author (Terence Feely) claims it has increased his output by 400%. Possibly the feeling of having a reactive machine, which appears to do things, rather than just have things done with it, accounts for this—your slave works hard and so do you. Are there no drawbacks? It costs a lot and takes time to learn—"expect to lose weeks of work", says Hammond, though days might be nearer the mark. Notoriously it is possible to lose work altogether on a word processor, and this happens to everybody at least once. The awareness that what you have written no longer exists anywhere at all, is unbelievably enraging and baffling. Will word processing generally raise the level of professional writing then? Does it make writers better as well as more productive? Though all users insist it has done so for them individually, this is hard to believe. But reliance happens fast.

Young people in the early 1980s are taking on a set of attitudes and values remarkably different from those of the stormy" 60s and "70s. Instead of anti-establishment outbursts, today"s younger generation had turned more thoughtful and more serious. There is heightened concern for the future of the country and a yearning for the traditions and support systems that gave comfort in the past. Many young men and Women of high-school and college age are having second thoughts about the "new morality" and condemn what a soaring divorce rate has done to families. They speak openly of gaining strength from religion. Patriotism, too, seems to be making a modest comeback. One change in the early 1980s is a questioning of the permissive moral climate of recent years. More young people, while hesitant to preach or to condemn their peers, cite the destructive effects of the drugs and alcohol that are so widely available in the schools. It is peer pressure that pushes teenagers into drugs, but now the habit often is dropped after high school, according to Debbie Bishop, a 22-year-old secretary. James Elrod, a college junior in Kentucky, also reports that use of marijuana on campus has lessened. A Cornell University law student reflects the views of many with the comment: "I think that drug abuse is harmful to your own health and those around you". But he adds: "Drinking is fine only as long as it"s not done to excess". With the added pressures of a more uncertain world, most young people stress the importance of a healthy family life. Yet, as they look at the family"s breakup that has taken place in the past decade, they concede that the challenge for many is to make the best of one-parent families. "The American family is evolving and changing, "according to Nina Mule, "Women are going out into the world and having careers. They"re becoming more independent instead of being the burden of the family". "But a great need remains for a family structure, "says Nina, who still lives with her parents, "because people have to be able to survive emotionally". In Atlanta, 18-year-old Liss Joiner feels strongly about what"s happened to the family". People have realized that the family has disintegrated, "she says, "But today"s family—particularly the black family—is trying to pull itself together and become the strong unit as it once was. "A similar view is expressed by a senior at Brigham Young University: "A happy family means everything to me. I read a lot about how the American family is falling a part. But I see lots of strong families around me, and that makes me very optimistic".

Americans today don"t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education— not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti-intellectualism in our schools aren"t difficult to find. "Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual," says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance." Ravitch"s latest book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti-intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits. But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second-rate country. We will have a less civil society." "Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," writes historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer-Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book. Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing." Mark Twain"s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti-intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness. Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines. School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country"s educational system is in the grips of people who "joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise." 16. What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school?