A Letter to Express Compliments Write a letter of about 100 words based on the following situation: A typhoon swept across Taiwan, and the students in your university actively took part in the donation activities. As the chairman of the Student Union, write a letter to the kindhearted students to express your gratitude and compliments. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Although recent years have seen substantial reductions in noxious pollutants from individual motor vehicles, the number of such vehicles has been steadily increasing. Consequently more than 100 cities in the United States still have levels of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and ozone (generated by photochemical reactions with hydrocarbons from vehicle exhaust) that exceed legally established limits. There is a growing realization that the only effective way to achieve further reductions in vehicle emissions—short of a massive shift away from the private automobile—is to replace conventional diesel fuel and gasoline with cleaner-burning fuels such as compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, ethanol, or methanol. All of these alternatives are carbon-based fuels whose molecules are smaller and simpler than those of gasoline. These molecules burn mom cleanly than gasoline, in part because they have fewer, if any, carbon-carbon bonds, and the hydrocarbons they do emit are less likely to generate ozone. The combustion of larger molecules, which have multiple carbon-carbon bonds, involves a more complex series of reaction. These reactions increase the probability of incomplete combustion and are more likely to release un-combusted and photo-chemically active hydrocarbon compounds into the atmosphere. On the other hand, alternative fuels do have drawbacks. Compressed natural gas would require that vehicles have a set of heavy fuel tanks—a serious liability in terms of performance and fuel efficiency-and liquefied petroleum gas faces fundamental limits in supply. Ethanol and methanol, on the other hand, have important advantages over other carbon based alternative fuels: they have a higher energy content per volume and would require minimal changes in the existing network for distributing motor fuel. Ethanol is commonly used as a gasoline supplement, but k is currently about twice as expensive as methanol, the low cost of which is one of its attractive features. Methanol"s most attractive feature, however, is that it can reduce by about 90 percent the vehicle emissions that form ozone, the most serious urban air pollutant. Like any alternative fuel, methanal has its critics. Yet much of the criticism is based on the use of "gasoline done" vehicles that do not incorporate even the simplest design improvements that are made possible with the use of methanol. It is true, for example, that a given volume of methanol provides only about one-half of the energy that gasoline and diesel fuel do; other things being equal, the fuel tank would have to be somewhat larger and heavier. However, since methanol-fueled vehicles could be designed to be much more efficient than "gasoline clone" vehicles fueled with methanol, they would need comparatively less fuel Vehicles incorporating only the simplest of the engine improvements that methanol makes feasible would still contribute to an immediate lessening of urban air pollution.

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

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

You are a college student in the English Department. Recently you have been made monitor in your class and you are going to make a speech in front of your classmates. You"ll make preparations for the speech in which you should 1) express your pleasure, 2) state briefly your moves, 3) and give complimentary remarks. Write your letter in no less than 100 words and write it neatly. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter, use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

BSection III Writing/B

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

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

It is a startling claim, but one that Congresswoman Deborah Pryce uses to good effect: the equivalent of two classrooms full of children are diagnosed with cancer every day. Mrs. Pryce lost her own 9-year-old daughter to cancer in 1999. Pediatric cancer remains a little-understood issue in America, where the health-care debate is consumed with the ills, pills and medical bills of the elderly. Cancer kills more children than any other disease in America. Although there have been tremendous gains in cancer survival rates in recent decades, the proportion of children and teens diagnosed with different forms of the disease increased by almost a third between 1975 and 2001. Grisly though these statistics are, they are still tiny when set beside the number of adult lives lost to breast cancer (41,000 each year) and lung cancer (164,000). Advocates for more money for child cancer prefer to look at life-years lost. The average age for cancer diagnosis in a young child is six, while the average adult is diagnosed in their late 60s. Robert Arceci, a pediatric cancer expert at Johns Hopkins, points out that in terms of total life-years saved, the benefit from curing pediatric cancer victims is roughly the same as curing adults with breast cancer. There is an obvious element of special pleading in such calculations. All the same, breast cancer has attracted a flurry of publicity, private fund-raising and money from government. Childhood cancer has received less attention and cash. Pediatric cancer, a term which covers people up to 20 years old, receives one-twentieth of the federal research money doled out by the National Cancer Institute. Funding, moan pediatric researchers, has not kept pace with rising costs m the field, and NCI money for collaborative research will actually be cut by 3% this year. There is no national pediatric cancer registry that would let researchers track child and teenage patients through their lives as they can do in the case of adult sufferers. A pilot childhood-cancer registry is in the works. Groups like Mr. Reaman"s now get cash directly from Congress. But it is plainly a problem most politicians don"t know much about. The biggest problem could lie with 15-19-year-olds. Those diagnosed with cancer have not seen the same improvement in their chances as younger children and older adults have done. There are some physical explanations for this: teenagers who have passed adolescence are more vulnerable to different sorts of cancer. But Archie Bleyer, a pediatric oncologist at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Texas, has produced some data implying that lack of health insurance plays a role. Older teenagers and young adults are less likely to be covered and checked regularly.

Illiteracy may be considered more as an abstract concept than a condition. When a famous English writer used the (1)_____ over two hundred years ago, he was actually (2)_____ to people who could (3)_____ read Greek or Latin. (4)_____,it seems unlikely that university examiners had this sort of (5)_____ in mind when they reported on "creeping illiteracy" in a report on their students" final examination in 1988. (6)_____ the years, university lecturers have been (7)_____ of an increasing tendency towards grammatical sloppiness, poor spelling and general imprecision (8)_____ their students" ways of writing; and sloppy writing is all (9)_____ often a reflection of sloppy thinking. Their (10)_____ was that they had (11)_____ to do teaching their own subject (12)_____ teaching their undergraduates to write. Some lecturers believe that they have a(n) (13)_____ to stress the importance of maintaining standards of dear thinking (14)_____ the written word in a world dominated by (15)_____ communications and images. They (16)_____ on the connection between clear thinking and a form of writing that is not only clear, but also sensitive to (17)_____ of meaning. The same lecturers argue that undergraduates appear to be the victims of a "softening process" that begins (18)_____ the teaching of English in schools, but this point of view has, not (19)_____, mused a great deal of (20)_____.

Studythefollowingphotoscarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould1)describethephotosbriefly2)interpretthesocialphenomenonreflectedbythem,and3)giveyourpointofviewYoushouldwrite160—200wordsneatly.(20points)

But for many, the fact that poor people are able to support themselves almost as well without government aid as they did with it is in itself a huge victory.

Much of the world should go on a diet in 2014. More than a third of adults【C1】______were estimated to be【C2】______or obese in 2008, according to a report by the Overseas Development Institute(ODI), a think tank in London. That's a 23 per cent increase on 1980. In the last three decades, the number of adults estimated to be obese in the developing world has almost quadrupled to 904 million, overtaking the number in【C3】______countries. "The most shocking thing is the degree to which obesity is now【C4】______developing as well as developed economies," says Tim Lobstein of the International Association for the Study of Obesity in London. "The problems【C5】______by overconsumption of fats and【C6】______are now global, not just Western, problems." The rise is【C7】______to a "creeping homogeni-sation"(spreading)of diets across the world, says the report, which says rising【C8】______, advertising and globalisation all play a part It criticizes policy-makers in most countries for being slow or【C9】______to tackle the problem. "We see a big【C10】______in what governments recommend people eat as part of their【C11】______campaigns and what people actually eat," says Sharada Keats. "We need governments to【C12】______the scale of the problem and start putting in place【C13】______steps to tackle it" Some countries have【C14】______to go against the grain and【C15】______. For example, South Koreans ate four times more【C16】______in 2008 than they did in 1980. The report【C17】______this to government health drives, which include【C18】______programs on how to【C19】______low-fat meals, showing what governments can do when they【C20】______.

The Students" Union of English Department will hold an English speech contest. You are required to write a poster through which students and teachers can be informed of the event.The poster should include: 1) schedule of the contest, 2) and requirements and other details. Write your letter in no less than 100 words and write it neatly.

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

Ever since John Burrows and his wife Carol opened their first hair salon in 1983, they have been taking on apprentices. "In my generation, an apprenticeship was the way to learn a trade so it was the obvious way for us to get the skilled staff we needed," Mr. Burrows says. Today, the Burrows" salon, Upper Cut in Weston-super-Mare, employs 35 people. Of the 16 stylists, 13 progressed through apprenticeships and Mr. Burrows believes a strong culture of training is integral to the company"s success. "Without the apprenticeships scheme our business wouldn"t be anything like the size it is today," Mr. Burrows says. The high-quality training the apprenticeships provide guarantees growth. The more skills staff have, the more effective a business will become. Although Mr. Burrows is an advocate of the scheme, he concedes that occasionally he has suffered problems. They have experienced episodes of theft, poor time keeping and bad discipline, but these are the sort of thing you get when you employ any number of staff. "Sometimes we have to ask apprentices to leave but often they sort themselves out. One year we had 100 percent completion rate, but our average is around 80 percent, which is double the national rate." "There is a risk for small businesses but you can help minimize the potential for problems by looking at the person"s history and background." If Mr. Burrows had one criticism of the scheme, it is that the National Vocational Qualification certificates are very difficult for many of the apprentices to pass. "The qualifications are not easy—many of the youngsters on the scheme are not academically great and they find it difficult. They need a lot of one-to-one coaching and a lot of help to be able to pass. But when they do it can be extremely gratifying." One of our apprentices was a girl who was dyslexic and had been expelled from a couple of schools. She was difficult at first but the other girls in the salon helped her develop and she went on to achieve NVQ level four. Now she is working full-time and helping other girls through the scheme. Another small company making use of the apprenticeship scheme is the Topiary Tree, a floristry business with two shops in Malton and Helmsley, North Yorkshire. With only three full-time employees it is one of the smallest businesses in the country to have taken on an apprentice. Gemma Magson, the manager of the business, wanted an apprentice because she was once one herself and wanted to offer someone else the opportunity she had. Her apprentice, also called Gemma, spends four days a week at the shop in Malton and one day a week at the Askham Bryan Training College in York. "The business has really benefited from having Gemma around," Ms. Magson says.

My room is twice as large as yours.

TheLighthouseofKnowledgeWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

You arc going to read a text about negotiating rules for a raise, followed by a list of evidences. Choose the best evidence from the list A~F for each numbered subheading(1~5). There is one extra evidence which you do not need to use. Although women have certainly made plenty of progress in the workplace over the past three decades, the glass ceiling remains firmly in place at many companies—especially when it comes to compensation. But some experts now suggest that the wage imbalance between the sexes could have as much to do with women"s failure to negotiate well as any other factor. So how can women—and men too, for that matter negotiate better deals in the workplace? Miller recently spoke on the topic at a workshop organized by the Advertising Women of New York. Here"s a crash course on his findings: 【C1】Show enthusiasm. The most important mistake you can make is to act passive and wait for them to lure you with a fantastic offer. 【C2】Know what you want. You"re trying to get a better job than what you have, not a solution to all your problems. 【C3】Avoid showing your hand. In interviews, many candidates are asked: How much do you earn at your current job? Do you blurt it out? That"s a huge mistake—you lose a major bargaining tool. So how do you deal with it? Learn to say that it"s not about the money, but rather the job itself that attracts you to the company. 【C4】Show why you"re the best fit. Start by knowing that you already have the skills for the job if you get an interview, and that they" re talking to at least five other people in the same situation as you. What you have to do is to show that you are the perfect match for their needs. 【C5】Be on the lookout at all times. Even if you love your current job, it"s always good to have one foot in the marketplace. Network, network, network. Meet folks in the same industry by joining a professional organization and participate in high-visibility activities. Get to know people who are in a position to hire you before you"re in a position where you need a job. It"s easier to develop a relationship with people when you don"t need anything from them. Consider joining a social club or working for a charity. It not only helps introduce you to people in your area but also exposes you to people in other fields that you might be interested in exploring. [A]In fact, avoid talking about money until the last leg of the interview process, when they"re ready to make you an offer. Then you"ll know you"re the candidate they want, and the ball is in your court. [B]So don"t get too emotionally attached to the job for which you"re interviewing. Something may seem like a dream job from the outside, but it"s important to remain objective. You should be able to walk away without remorse if they can"t meet what you most want from the job. [C]It helps in determining your own worth and can give you another tool to negotiate a promotion or raise at your current job. So make sure you keep your ears perked up, albeit discreetly. [D]Dance around the number and ask what they"ve budgeted for the position. If pressed, be prepared with a number that reflects your total current compensation, including all benefits and bonus. [E]The car-buying approach with a dealer—"I"ll go elsewhere if you won"t give me the best deal" won"t work with employment. You have to show excitement and enthusiasm and make the employer want you. [F]Ask the right questions about the culture and the job requirements, and pepper the conversation with what your own expectations are. If it"s a team culture, give examples of situations where you have been a great team player. If the company centers more on individual performance, show how you generate great ideas.

While the ripples of America"s subprime-mortgage crisis have spread far and wide, Latin America—a place long associated with financial disaster—has remained improbably calm. Banks have reported no unpleasant surprises. Brazil and Peru have been blessed with coveted investment-grade ratings. Surprisingly, perhaps the fleetest country of all has been Argentina. Since it emerged from the financial crisis of 2001-02, it has been one of the world"s fastest-growing economies. It is expected to expand faster than most of its neighbors again this year. Quite simply, it barely has any credit. Back when its economy virtually collapsed, the country suffered a run on its banks, followed by a freeze on withdrawals, and a massive currency devaluation. As a result, bank lending to the private sector shrivelled, from 23.8% of GDP in 2000 to 10.8% in 2003. Since then, it has rebounded to a piddling 13% ; by contrast, the ratio in Brazil was 36.5% in 2006. Almost all of these loans in Argentina are accessible only on a short-term basis. Once its recovery began in June 2002, Argentina became a paradise for business. Unemployment of over 20% kept wages down, and the devaluation gave exporters an edge on foreign competitors. The ample productive capacity left idle by the crisis meant firms could expand without making big investments. And the windfall profits reaped by agricultural exporters, thanks to record commodities prices, enabled many of them to finance new projects out of earnings. Hence the economy could grow at almost 9% a year with little need for credit. But such a lucky confluence of factors could not last. Starting in early 2005 ,.inflation picked up, a sign that the installed capacity was starting to limit output. Salaries and prices for raw materials increased sharply, cutting into profits. And farmers were particularly hard hit when the government nearly doubled the taxes in farm exports. Now, just as companies need to embark on big investments if they are to keep growing, their margins are no longer big enough to pay for the expansion and they need to borrow. So, the time is ripe for the country"s financial system to recover. But a number of things are in the way. Foremost is Argentina"s business risk. Those in the informal economy (which represents over 40% of GDP) can neither save nor borrow legally, lest they become known to the taxmen. The rest remain cowed by memories of the crisis. Although Argentines have poured their savings into property, fuelling a construction boom, they still hold about four-fifths of their deposits abroad. Inflation, fuelled by a public-spending binge, state-mandated wage increases, and a cheap currency, is not helping either. No one knows how high it is. The consumer-price index is doctored to keep the official rate below 10%, but private estimates suggest it is near 25%. Without a reliable index of inflation, lending is almost impossible, even for the medium term. And the central bank has kept interest rates strongly negative in real terms, encouraging workers to spend their wages rather than to save.