C.P. Snow once said: "A sense of the future is behind all good policies. Unless we have it, we can give nothing either wise or decent to the world." Thinking carefully about an outcome is an intelligent first step in many processes, especially when the stakes are high, possibly even dangerous. Do you have any experience in getting out of hazardous situations? In the most exceptional circumstances, a few good rules of thumb may save you. Here are five things to keep in mind. 1. Stay calm If a catastrophe threatens your life, panic will only make matters worse. Nothing but calmness can help you adequately take stock of the situation and take appropriate measures. 2. Remain confident Desperation can paralyze you or sap your energy, while confidence is the key to saving yourself. 3. Help each other You should organize for mutual assistance in case of an earthquake, flood, fire, etc. People working together can always cope more successfully with any adverse situation. Solidarity means strength: solidarity means victory. 4. Be obedient to superiors The best strategy when facing a catastrophe is to obey commands and keep order. More often than not, leaders are experts, or someone familiar with the situation or with rich experience. Being too individualistic and going your own way will usually make the situation worse for you and others. So, the best thing to do is to listen:to authorities and remain orderly. 5. Communicate When in danger it is best to seek help immediately so those with more resources can come to your aid. If you are at risk, use whatever means available as soon as possible to contact others for help, and take efforts to maintain communication once it is established. While every catastrophe is different in its own way, all can be met and hopefully overcome with the above-mentioned pieces of advice. By carefully considering what needs to be done, even under the worst of situations, one can find solutions, or endure until aided by others. [A]A person trapped in ruins in an earthquake, didn't lose hope. The victim overcame his pain and despair, and kept banging out signals on the fallen wall around him for help. Because of his efforts, a rescue team was able to find him and save his life. [B]For example, if numerous people are involved in a dangerous situation, some, out of fear or inclination, may not follow direction or heed sound advice. As a result of the disorder, rescue efforts are hindered , or worse more casualties are incurred. [C]Nine fishermen from Peru were hit by a severe storm, but they didn 't panic even though their boat was damaged so badly that they couldn't sail home. They maintained faith that they would surely to be saved, and their belief gave them strength. When there is hope, there is a way! They survived at sea for 40 days before they were finally rescued. Their story is a good sample for future people lost at sea. It is best to remember the proverb: God helps those who help themselves. [D]History shows that when people are in danger mutual assistance promotes confidence, and reassuring others not only helps them, but can calm you as well. Helping others is beneficial, especially in the direst circumstances. During the Sept. 11 attacks in America, people pulled together and supported each other. This not only reduced casualties, but also left a deep impression on people around world. Remember, helping others is helping yourself! [E]The Apollo 13 space mission suffered catastrophic mechanical problems en route to the Moon. Its malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank No. 2 in the service module. The NASA Mission Control Center immediately issued two orders. The second order was concerning navigation. But, can you guess what the first order was? Unbelievably, the astronauts were told to take two tranquillizer pills each! As a result, calmness helped the astronauts overcome a series of difficulties and return to earth. Calmness can work miracles in times of emergency. [F]The best way to prevent a catastrophe from happening is planning ahead. You should often check your circuits, stoves, electrical appliances and gas pipelines. Before sleeping in a hotel, you should be aware of the nearest exit in case of an emergency. "Preparation averts peril."

Britain"s gardeners have revealed one of their greatest pet hates—other people"s cats. Okay, they"re sadistic murderers—but is it fair that cats have been rated as being as detestable as rats in a poll of British gardeners? A new survey in the UK indicates that cats come second only to rats as the least favou77rite mammal to visit our gardens. (46) The UK"s 10 million cats have had its rough of late, drawing harsh criticism because of their bloodlust and habit of viewing the nation"s gardens as their own personal toilets. (47) Though the animals are the UK"s favorite pets, British gardeners have struck back by crowning the cat as one of the most unwelcome visitors—voting them only slightly more popular than rats in the new poll. The Mammal Society—which conducted the survey—says cats cut a swathe through the nation"s wildlife, killing around 300 million animals every year. "Cats are solitary predatory hunters. (48) People ask why they kill when they are clearly well-fed, but a cat"s motivation to hunt is quite separate from its desire to satisfy hunger." Even with a full stomach, a cat cannot resist the stimuli of prey passing nearby, says Ms. Heath, author of Why Does My Cat? "It doesn"t make sense for a cat to wait until it"s hungry to catch food—there may be none around then. Better to hunt when there"s the opportunity and hide the food away." A BBC television series has raised the question of whether cats should be kept indoors at night. (49) Wildlife experts say keeping cats locked up from dusk to dawn will prevent much of the killing they create, and will also mean they are less likely to be run over. Mammal expert Professor Steve Harris, from Bristol University, said: "The message is clear, most people are heartily sick of having their neighbors" cats in their garden". Owners who have resorted to collar bells to warn prey may have underestimated feline guile. "Some cats have learned to hold their heads to minimize noise coming from the bells around their necks. Perhaps we need to admire this skill, rather than get paranoid about it." Even today, some view the black cat as an omen of misfortune. Spiteful people are dubbed as being "catty". A raucous cry is a "caterwaul". At work, a greedy, lazy boss is a "fat cat". But, to be fair, the British can"t hate cats that much. (50) A recent report found that the generosity of the British towards the cat has caused one in four of the creatures to become clinically obese.

Studythefollowingtwopicturescarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould:1)describethecartoon,pointoutthemessageconveyed;2)giveyourcomment.Youshouldwriteabout160-200wordsneatly.

A.Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayinnolessthan160—200words.B.Youressaymustbewrittenclearly.C.Youressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow.1)Describethepicture,2)interpretitsmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Both the number and the percentage of people in the United States involved in nonagricultural pursuit expanded rapidly during the half century following the Civil War, with some of the most dramatic increases occurring in the domains of transportation, manufacturing and trade and distribution. The development of the railroad and telegraph systems during the middle of the nineteenth century led to significant improvements in the speed, volume, and regularity of shipments and communications, making possible a fundamental transformation in the production and distribution of goods. In agriculture, the transformation was marked by the emergence of the grain elevators, the cotton presses, the warehouses, and the commodity exchanges that seemed to so many of the nation"s farmers the visible sign of a vast conspiracy against them. In manufacturing, the transformation was marked by the emergence of a "new factory system" in which plants became larger, more complex, and more systematically organized and managed. And in distribution, the transformation was marked by the emergence of the jobber(中间商), the wholesaler, and "the mass retailer(零售商). These changes radically altered the nature of work during the half century between 1870 and 1920. To be sure, there were still small workshops, where skilled craftspeople manufactured products ranging from newspapers to cabinets to plumbing fixtures. There were the sweatshops in city tenements, where groups of men and women in household settings manufactured clothing or cigars on a piecework basis. And there were factories in occupations such as metalwork where individual contractors presided over what were essentially handicraft proprietorships that coexisted within a single building. But as the number of wage earners in manufacturing rose from 2.7 million in 1888 to 4.5 million in 1900 to 8.4 million in 1920, the number of huge plants like the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia burgeoned (迅速成长), as did the size of average plant. (The Baldwin Works had 600 employees in 1855, 3,000 in 1875, and 8,000 in 1900.) By 1920, at least in the northeastern United States where most of the nation"s manufacturing wage earners were concentrated, three-quarters of those worked in factories with more than 100 employees and 30 percent worked in factories with more than 100 employees.

Our ape-men forefathers had no obvious natural weapons in the struggle for【C1】______in the open. They had neither the powerful teeth nor the strong claws of the big cats. They could not【C2】______with the bear, whose strength, speed and claws【C3】______an impressive "small-fire" weaponry. They could not even defend themselves【C4】______running swiftly like the horses, zebras or small animals. If the ape-men had attempted to【C5】______on those terms in the open, they would have been【C6】______to failure and extinction. But they were【C7】______with enormous concealed advantages of a kind not possessed by any of their competitors. In the【C8】______for the pickings of the forest, the ape-men had【C9】______efficient stereoscopic vision and a sense of colour that the animals of the grasslands did not possess. The ability to see clearly at close range【C10】______the ape-men to study practical problems in a way that lay far【C11】______the reach of the original inhabitants of the grassland. Good long-distance sight was quite another matter. 【C12】______of long-distance vision had not been a problem for forest-dwelling apes and monkeys because the higher the viewpoint, the greater the range of sight—so【C13】______they had had to do was climb a tree. Out in the open, however, this simple solution was not【C14】______. Climbing a hill would have helped,【C15】______in many places the ground was flat. The ape-men【C16】______the only possible solution. They reared up as high as possible on their hind limbs and began to walk upright. This vital change of physical position brought about considerable【C17】______. It was extremely unstable and it meant that the already slow ape-men became slower still.【C18】______, they persevered and their bone structure gradually became【C19】______to the new, unstable position that【C20】______them the name Homo Erectus, upright man.

[A]Somearchaeologicalsiteshavealwaysbeeneasilyobservable—forexample,theParthenoninAthens,Greece;thepyramidsofGizainEgypt;andthemegalithsofStonehengeinsouthernEngland.Butthesesitesareexceptionstothenorm.Mostarchaeologicalsiteshavebeenlocatedbymeansofcarefulsearching,whilemanyothershavebeendiscoveredbyaccident.OlduvaiGorge,anearlyhominidsiteinTanzania,wasfoundbyabutterflyhunterwholiterallyfellintoitsdeepvalleyin1911.ThousandsofAztecartifactscametolightduringthediggingoftheMexicoCitysubwayinthe1970s.[B]Inanothercase,AmericanarchaeologistsReneMillionandGeorgeCowgillspentyearssystematicallymappingtheentirecityofTeotihuacanintheValleyofMexiconearwhatisnowMexicoCityatitspeakaroundAD600,thiscitywasoneofthelargesthumansettlementsintheworld.Theresearchersmappednotonlythecity"svastandornateceremonialareas,butalsohundredsofsimplerapartmentcomplexeswherecommonpeoplelived.[C]Howdoarchaeologistsknowwheretofindwhattheyarelookingforwhenthereisnothingvisibleonthesurfaceoftheground?Typically,theysurveyandsample(maketestexcavationson)largeareasofterraintodeterminewhereexcavationwillyieldusefulinformation.Surveysandtestsampleshavealsobecomeimportantforunderstandingthelargerlandscapesthatcontainarchaeologicalsites.[D]Surveyscancoverasinglelargesettlementorentirelandscapes.Inonecase,manyresearchersworkingaroundtheancientMayacityofCopan,Honduras,havelocatedhundredsofsmallruralvillagesandindividualdwellingsbyusingaerialphotographsandbymakingsurveysonfoot.TheresultingsettlementmapsshowhowthedistributionanddensityoftheruralpopulationaroundthecitychangeddramaticallybetweenAD500and850,whenCopancollapsed.[E]Tofindtheirsites,archaeologiststodayrelyheavilyonsystematicsurveymethodsandavarietyofhigh-technologytoolsandtechniques.Airbornetechnologies,suchasdifferenttypesofradarandphotographicequipmentcarriedbyairplanesorspacecraft,allowarchaeologiststolearnaboutwhatliesbeneaththegroundwithoutdigging.Aerialsurveyslocategeneralareasofinterestorlargerburiedfeatures,suchasancientbuildingsorfields.[F]Mostarchaeologicalsites,however,arediscoveredbyarchaeologistswhohavesetouttolookforthem.Suchsearchescantakeyears.BritisharchaeologistHowardCarterknewthatthetomboftheEgyptianpharaohTutankhamumexistedfrominformationfoundinothersites.CartersiftedthroughrubbleintheValleyoftheKingsforsevenyearsbeforehelocatedthetombin1922.Inthelate1800sBritisharchaeologistSirArthurEvanscombedantiquedealers"storesinAthens,Greece.HewassearchingfortingengravedsealsattributedtotheancientMycenaeanculturethatdominatedGreecefromthe1400sto1200sBC.Evans"sinterpretationsofthoseengravingseventuallyledthemtofindtheMinoanpalaceatKnossos(Knosos),ontheislandofCrete,in1900.[G]Groundsurveysallowarchaeologiststopinpointtheplaceswheredigswillbesuccessful.Mostgroundsurveysinvolvealotofwalking,lookingforsurfacecluessuchassmallfragmentsofpottery.Theyoftenincludeacertainamountofdiggingtotestforburiedmaterialsatselectedpointsacrossalandscape.Archaeologistsalsomaylocateburiedremainsbyusingsuchtechnologiesasgroundradar,magnetic-fieldrecording,andmetaldetectors.Archaeologistscommonlyusecomputerstomapsitesandthelandscapesaroundsites.Twoandthree-dimensionalmapsarehelpfultoolsinplanningexcavations,illustratinghowsiteslook,andpresentingtheresultsofarchaeologicalresearch.Order:

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

Undeniably, many Europeans arc suffering. Levels of unemployment are the highest since records began in France(3. 2 million)and Spain(6 million). Bad European news mounts almost daily. Europe is having a terrible time—except compared with probably every other continent and any time in history. Look at crisis stricken Spain, for instance. The average Spaniard now lives to 82, seven years longer than in 1980.(Most countries where people can expect to reach 82 are European, says the World Health Organization.)Today that average Spaniard"s income, despite years of crisis, is still nearly double what it was in 1980. And across Europe, daily life has tended to get gradually more pleasant. For instance, crime rates have kept falling in most western countries despite the crisis. British streets haven"t been this safe in more than 30 years, according to the UK"s Office of National Statistics. It"s important to realize that most people"s lives aren"t affected by the latest twist in the euro zone crisis. A good new breast-cancer drug often does more for collective happiness than a good new prime minister. And those gains get shared out most fairly in Europe. That"s why seven of the 10 best-rating countries on the World Economic Forum"s gender gap index are European. So are six of the top 10 least corrupt in Transparency International"s corruption perception index. And when the CIA ranked 136 countries for income equality, the 17 most equal were all European. No wonder Spain and even Greece outrank Qatar on the United Nations" human development index. Most emerging economies lag decades behind us: Russian, Brazilian and Chinese average incomes are still below half those in Greece, according to the World Bank. Nonetheless, the relative rise of new countries engenders paranoia. The American pundit Thomas Friedman often says China and India are "eating our lunch". But since the global economy isn"t a zero-sum game, it"s more accurate to say that the Chinese and Indians are making our lunch. The richer they get, the better they can afford our high-end engineering products, hotel rooms, luxury goods, universities, etc. It"s also notable how well European democracies have held up under five years of crisis. In 1981, when shots were fired in Spain"s parliament, that average Spaniard still worried about a fascist coup. Today every western European country is a secure democracy. Contrary to predictions, Europe"s far right hasn"t risen en masse during the crisis, notes the London-based research and advisory group Counterpoint. Nor has Western Europe experienced a big terrorist atrocity since 2005. Crucially, too, the next round of wars shouldn"t involve Europeans. If Iran, North Korea or Taiwan blows up, we won"t be there. We just don"t have the gunboats any more. Last year Asian defense spending exceeded Europe"s probably for the first time since Europeans began conquering the world 500 years ago. Defense experts bewail our impotence, but on the bright side, governments with strong armies always overestimate their ability to manage a war smoothly, and get lured into horrible adventures. That won"t happen to us. Moreover, given our lack of natural resources, other countries will probably leave us in peace. Sure, the 400 million western Europeans—just 6 per cent of the global population—won"t rule the world again, but then we don"t particularly want to.

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

For a society to exist, it must have a system of leadership. Some people will have to have power over others. As Max Weber pointed out, however, people can perceive power as legitimate or illegitimate. Weber used the term authority to refer to legitimate power that is, power that people accept as right. In contrast, illegitimate power, coercion, is power that people do not accept as just. 1. Custom and authority Throughout the world's history, the most common form of authority has been traditional. Traditional authority, which is based on custom, is the hallmark of preliterate groups. In these societies, custom dictates basic relationships. 2. Traditional gender difference Gender relations in preliterate groups are also based on traditional authority. The divisions between men and women are based on the past, with custom determining that a gulf should be maintained between them. Custom also dictates the specifics of their relationships. 3. Change of tradition When traditional society changes, traditional authority is undermined. 4. Tradition in modern society Even in industrial and postindustrial societies, however, traditional authority never totally dies out. 5. Challenges to tradition This traditional authority, unquestioned in most places in the world, has not gone completely challenged, however. Just as for the widow of Spain and Portugal, matters are no longer as clear-cut as they once were, and some Western societies debate the right of parents to hit their kids. Although the images that come to mind when we think of power are those of government—kings, queens, coups, dictatorships, running for office, voting—traditional authority, in the sense of power relations, is also an inevitable part of everyday life. [A]In a democracy, for example, the president's authority comes from the office, as specified in the written constitution, not from his or her reputation or personal characteristics. [B]A good case in point is Sweden: it has even passed laws that forbid spanking, and Sweden authorities arrest parents who lay a hand on their children. [C]For example, in small villages in southern Spain and in a large part of Portugal, widows are expected to wear only black until they remarry—which generally means that they wear black for the rest of their lives. The force of a tradition is so strong that if a widow were to violate the dress code, she would create a scandal. [D]Parental authority provides an excellent example. Parents exercise authority over their children because they have always had such authority. From generations past, we inherit the idea that parents are not only responsible for providing their children with food, shelter, and discipline, but also that they have the right to choose their children' s doctors and schools, and teach them religion and morality. [E]For example, because of birth a particular individual becomes the chief, king, or queen. As far as members of that society are concerned, this is the right way to determine a ruler because "that is the way it has always been done. " [F]As a society industrializes, for example, new perspectives on life open up, and no longer does traditional authority go unchallenged. Thus, in contemporary southern Spain and parts of Portugal, you can see old women dressed in black from head to toe, and you immediately know their marital status. Younger widows , however, are likely to be indistinguishable from other women.

As Gilbert White, Darwin, and others observed long ago, all species appear to have the innate capacity to increase their numbers from generation to generation.【F1】 The task for ecologists is to untangle the environmental and biological factors that hold this intrinsic capacity for population growth in check over the long run. The great variety of dynamic behaviors exhibited by different population makes this task more difficult: some populations remain roughly constant from year to year; others exhibit regular cycles of abundance and scarcity; still others vary wildly, with outbreaks and crashes that are in some cases plainly correlated with the weather, and in other cases not. To impose some order on this kaleidoscope of patterns, one school of thought proposes dividing populations into two groups. These ecologists posit that the relatively steady populations have density-dependent growth parameters; that is, rates of birth, death, and migration which depend strongly on population density.【F2】 The highly varying populations have density-independent growth parameters, with vital rates buffeted by environmental events; these rates fluctuate in a way that is wholly independent of population density. This dichotomy has its uses, but it can cause problems if taken too literally. For one thing, no population can be driven entirely by density-independent factors all the time. No matter how severely or unpredictably birth, death, and migration rates may be fluctuating around their long-term averages, if there were no density-dependent effects, the population would, in the long run, either increase or decrease without bound(barring a miracle by which gains and losses canceled exactly).【F3】 Put another way, it may be that on average 99 percent of all deaths in a population arise from density-independent causes, and only one percent from factors varying with density. The factors making up the one percent may seem unimportant, and their cause may be correspondingly hard to determine. Yet, whether recognized or not, they will usually determine the long-term average population density. In order to understand the nature of the ecologist"s investigation, we may think of the density-dependent effects on growth parameters as the signal ecologists are trying to isolate and interpret, one that tends to make the population increase from relatively low values or decrease from relatively high ones, while the density-independent effects act to produce noise in the population dynamics.【F4】 For populations that remain relatively constant, or that oscillate around repeated cycles, the signal can be fairly easily characterized and its effects described, even though the causative biological mechanism may remain unknown. 【F5】 For irregularly fluctuating populations, we are likely to have too few observations to have any hope of extracting the signal from the overwhelming noise. But it now seems clear that all populations are regulated by a mixture of density-dependent and density-independent effects in varying proportions.

The great recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. And ultimately, it is likely to reshape our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years. No one tries harder than the jobless to find silver linings in this national economic disaster. Many said that unemployment, while extremely painful, had improved them in some ways: they had become less materialistic and more financially prudent; they were more aware of the struggles of others. In limited respects, perhaps the recession will leave society better off. At the very least, it has awoken us from our national fever dream of easy riches and bigger houses, and put a necessary end to an era of reckless personal spending. But for the most part, these benefits seem thin, uncertain, and far off. In The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, the economic historian Benjamin Friedman argues that both inside and outside the U.S., lengthy periods of economic stagnation or decline have almost always left society more mean-spirited and less inclusive, and have usually stopped or reversed the advance of rights and freedoms. Anti-immigrant sentiment typically increases, as does conflict between races and classes. Income inequality usually falls during a recession, but it has not shrunk in this one. Indeed, this period of economic weakness may reinforce class divides, and decrease opportunities to cross them—especially for young people. The research of Till Von Wachter, the economic at Columbia University, suggests that not all people graduating into a recession see their life chances dimmed: those with degrees from elite universities catch up fairly quickly to where they otherwise would have been if they had graduated in better times; it is the masses beneath them that are left behind. In the Internet age, it is particularly easy to see the resentment that has always been hidden within American society. More difficult, in the moment, is discerning precisely how these lean times are affecting society' s character. In many respects, the U. S. was more socially tolerant entering this recession than at any time in its history, and a variety of national polls on social conflict since then have shown mixed results. We will have to wait and see exactly how these hard times will reshape our social fabric. But they certainly will reshape it, and all the more so the longer they extend.

The food you eat does more than provide energy. It can have a dramatic effect on your body"s ability to fight off heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, and weak bones. With remarkable consistency, recent research has found that a diet high in plant-based foods—fruits, vegetables, dried peas and beans, grains, and starchy staples such as potatoes—is the body"s best weapon in thwarting many health-related problems. These foods work against so many diseases that the same healthy ingredients you might use to protect your heart or ward off cancer will also benefit your intestinal tract and bones. Scientists have recently estimated that approximately 30 to 40 percent of all cancers could be averted if people ate more fruits, vegetables, and plant-based foods and minimized high-fat, high-calorie edibles that have scant nutritional value. Up to 70 percent" of cancers might be eliminated if people also stopped smoking, exercised regularly, and controlled their weight. In the past, researchers had linked fat consumption with the development of cancers, but they currently believe that eating fruits, vegetables, and grains may be more important in preventing the disease than not eating fat. "The evidence about a high-fat diet and cancer seemed a lot stronger several years ago than it does now", says Melanie Polk, a registered dietitian and director of nutrition education at the American Institute for Cancer Research. The road to strong bones is paved with calcium-rich food. Leafy green vegetables and low-fat dairy products are excellent sources of calcium, the mineral that puts stiffness into your skeletal system and keeps your bones from turning rubbery and fragile. Your body uses calcium for more than keeping your bones strong. Calcium permits cells, to divide, regulates muscle contraction and relaxation, and plays an important role in the movement of protein and nutrients inside cells. If you don"t absorb enough from what you eat to satisfy these requirements, your body will take it from your bones. Because your body doesn"t produce this essential mineral, you must continually replenish the supply. Even though the recommended daily amount is 1,200mg, most adults don"t eat more than 500mg. One reason may have been the perception that calcium-rich dairy products were also loaded with calories. "In the past, women, in particular, worried that dairy products were high in calories", says Letha Y. Griffin, M. D., of Peachtree Orthopaedics in Atlanta. "But today you can get calcium without eating any high-fat or high-calorie foods by choosing skim milk or low-fat yogurt". Also, low-fat dairy products contain phosphorous and magnesium and are generally fortified with vitamin D, all of which help your body absorb and use calcium. If you find it difficult to include enough calcium in your diet, ask your doctor about supplements. They"re a potent way to get calcium as well as vitamin D and other minerals. But if you rely on pills instead of a calcium-rich diet, you won"t benefit from the other nutrients that food provides. Getting the recommended vitamin D may be easy, since your body makes the vitamin when your skin is exposed to the sun"s rays.

[A] Title: ON MAKING FRIENDS [B] Time limit: 40 minutes [C] Word limit: 120~150 words (not including the given opening sentence) [D] Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: "As a human being, one can hardly do without a friend." [E] Your composition must be written clearly on the ANSWER SHEET. (15 points) OUTLINE: 1. The need for friends 2. True friendship 3. My principle in making friends

Why is English so difficult? It is often thought that the number of words in the English language is a major reason, but this is not the real answer. Certainly, there are over half million words in the Oxford English Dictionary, but only about 10,000 are in general everyday use. A much stronger reason is the rich variety of sources from which English comes—sources that are due to the different people who have conquered or settled in parts of the British Isles over the past 1,300 years-and knowing more about the way English has evolved over this period makes its difficulties easier to understand. What do we mean by an "English" word? Many words are English in the sense that they can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxons—Germanic tribes which settled in England from around the fifth century A.D. They gave us many common words like book, house, cat and dog. Earlier still were the Celtic people whose speech survives in Scottish and Irish Gaelic, in Welsh, and in the local languages of two extremities of the British Isles, Manx and Cornish. There is practically no Celtic influence in English. This is because the Celts were forced back in to the fringes of the British Isles by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, and there was little cultural interaction. The next important influence on the main vocabulary of English came in the ninth and tenth centuries when much of the east side of England was in the hands of Danish invaders, and England as a whole had a Danish king Cnut (Canute) for a time. The Danes had much more contact with the Anglo-Saxons than did the Celts, and their short period of occupation has left its mark in the number of Scandinavian words taken into our language. Many of these are still in use, such as take and law, names of parts of the body such as leg and skull. Many more Scandinavian words are preserved in some dialects of the east side of England, in place-names and in street-names. The last time that England was successfully invaded was in 1052 when William of Normandy defeated the English king Harold at the Battle of Hastings. The arrival of the Normans brought a further decisive influence on the language—French. French, together with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian is known as a Romance language, and has its roots in Latin. For several centuries, French was the language of the aristocracy in England and a large number of French words came into the language. Many of these words are to do with government, like justice, council and tax, and many are abstract terms like liberty, charity and conflict. Most of the words taken into the language over the years were adopted either because there was a basic need for them and they were useful or because they were preferable m some way to the words already in use. Often the old word disappeared altogether. In many cases, however, the new word and the old continued in use side by side on a roughly equal footing. This had produced pairs of words which are both in use today, like shut and close or buy and purchase, in which the second word of each pair is French in origin. In the first years after the Norman Conquest many new words were used only by the ruling class and professionals associated with them, such as scribes and clerks. The language of the common people remained largely unaffected. It was the spread of literacy and the development of printing that brought the French words into more general use. Often these were technical words, or words with an official ring, such as commence and purchase. The result was a mixture of types of words. For many meanings we now have a choice of formal and informal words, the formal ones often being used only in very specific situations.

"Popular art" has a number of meanings, impossible to define with any precision, which range from folklore to junk. The poles are clear enough, but the middle tends to blur. The Hollywood Western of the 1930"s for example, has elements of folklore, but is closer to junk than to high art or folk art. There can be great trash, just as there is bad high art. The musicals of George Gershwin are great popular art, never aspiring to high art. Schubert and Brahms, however, used elements of popular music—folk themes—in works clearly intended as high art. The case of Verdi is a different one: he took a popular genre-bourgeois melodrama set to music (an accurate definition of nineteenth-century opera) and, without altering its fundamental nature, transmuted it into high art. This remains one of the greatest achievements in music, and one that cannot be fully appreciated without recognizing the essential trashiness of the genre. As an example of such a transmutation, consider what Verdi made of the typical political elements of nineteenth-century opera. Generally in the plots of these operas, a hero or heroine—usually portrayed only as an individual, unfettered by class—is caught between the immoral corruption of the aristocracy and the doctrinaire rigidity or secret greed of the leaders of the proletariat. Verdi transforms this naive and unlikely formulation with music of extraordinary energy and rhythmic vitality, music more subtle than it seems at first hearing. There are scenes and arias that still sound like calls to arms and were clearly understood as such when they were first performed. Such pieces lend an immediacy to the otherwise veiled political message of these operas and call up feelings beyond those of the opera itself. Or consider Verdi"s treatment of character. Before Verdi, there were rarely any characters at all in musical drama, only a series of situations which allowed the singers to express a series of emotional states. Any attempt to find coherent psychological portrayal in these operas is misplaced ingenuity. The only coherence was the singer"s vocal technique: when the cast changed, new arias were almost always substituted, generally adapted from other operas. Verdi"s characters, on the other hand, have genuine consistency and integrity. Even if, in many cases, the consistency is that of pasteboard melodrama, the integrity of the character is achieved through the music: once he had become established. Verdi did not rewrite his music for different singers or countenance alterations or substitutions of somebody else"s arias in one of his operas, as every eighteenth-century composer had done. When he revised an opera, it was only for dramatic economy and effectiveness.

I don't teach because teaching is easy for me.

Studythefollowingbarchartcarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould1)describethebarchart,and2)deducethepossiblereasonsforthefact.3)Makearelevantprediction.Youshouldwriteabout160-200wordsneatly.

Newspaper publishers make money mainly from subscribers and advertisers. It"s been that way for centuries. But in the last few years an important new income stream has opened up for newspapers. Among the pioneers is The Gazette Company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which since 1993 has been providing information to its readers delivered by both paper and, increasingly, the Web. "If a newspaper views itself as ink on paper, I don"t think it will survive," says Steve Hannah, vice president of information technology. (46) Online newspapers are a look into the future, and just pondering it raises the question of whether it isn"t nicer getting your daily news curled up in your favorite chair with your ballpoint pen handy to circle items of interest, or scissors ready to snip out articles you want to save. The Gazette Company is betting its subscribers want both electronic and paper options, and so far it seems to be right. The rest of the world is moving into cyberspace more slowly than the United States, and, in the developing world, the Internet has hardly penetrated at all. (47) UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is determined to change this through the United Nations Information Technology Service, which will train large numbers of people to tap into the income-enhancing power of the Internet. Annan is also proposing an Internet health network that will provide state-of-the-art medical knowledge to 10,000 clinics and hospitals in poor countries. The onrushing Cyber Age has given newfound power to us all, as seen in Jody Williams"s one-woman organization using e-mail to promote a global ban on land mines. Yet, this is but a glimpse of what"s ahead in the minds of those immersed in this great and accelerating transformation. (48) At Microsoft, Bill Gates predicts that by 2018 major newspapers will "publish their last paper editions and move solely to electronic distribution", and that by 2020 dictionaries will redefine books as "eBook titles read on screen". (49) Computers have metamorphosed from the University of Pennsylvania"s 1946 ENIAC—whose more than 17,000 vacuum tubes had less number-crunching power than today"s laptop—into thumbnail-sized computer chips containing 42 million transistors. William Van Dusen Wishard, president of World Trends Research, is concerned. (50) In a speech to the Issue Management Council in Washington, D.C., he noted that "researchers at Carnegie Mellon University cite a two-year study showing depression and loneliness appearing at greater levels in people using the Internet than in others not using it, or not using it as much. Extensive exposure to the wider world via the Net appears to make people less satisfied with their personal lives".