"We want Singapore to have the X-factor, that buzz that you get in London, Paris, or New York." That is how Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore"s prime minister, (1)_____ his government"s decision to (2)_____ gambling in the country, (3)_____ two large, Vegas-style casinos. Whether the casinos will indeed help to transform Singapore"s staid image remains to be seen. But the decision has already (4)_____ an uncharacteristic buzz among the country"s normally (5)_____ citizens. The government has contemplated, and rejected (6)_____ casinos several times in the past. One reason was (7)_____ Singapore"s economic growth was so rapid that casinos seemed like an unnecessary evil. Buddhism and Islam, two of the country"s main religions, (8)_____ on gambling. The government itself has traditionally had strong, and often (9)_____, ideas about how its citizens should behave. Until recently, for example, it refused to (10)_____ homosexuals to the civil service. It also used to (11)_____ chewing gum, which it considers a public nuisance. Nowadays, (12)_____, Singapore"s electronics industry, the mainstay of the economy, is struggling to cope with cheap competition from places like China. In the first quarter of this year, output (13)_____ by 5.8% at an annual rate. So the government wants to promote tourism and other services to (14)_____ for vanishing jobs in manufacturing. Merrill Lynch, an investment bank, (15)_____ the two proposed casinos could (16)_____ in as much as $4 billion in the initial investment alone. (17)_____ its estimates, they would have annual revenues of (18)_____ $3.6 billion, and pay at least $600 million in taxes and fees. The government, for its part, thinks the integrated (19)_____, as it coyly calls the casinos, would (20)_____ as many as 35,000 jobs.

"There is one and only one social responsibility of business," wrote Milton Friedman, a Nobel prize-winning economist, "That is, to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its prof its." But even if you accept Friedman"s premise and regard corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies as a waste of shareholders" money, things may not be absolutely clear-cut. New research suggests that CSR may create monetary value for companies—at least when they are prosecuted for corruption. The largest firms in America and Britain together spend more than $ 15 billion a year on CSR, according to an estimate by EPG, a consulting firm. This could add value to their businesses in three ways. First, consumers may take CSR spending as a "signal" that a company"s products are of high quality. Second, customers may be willing to buy a company"s products as an indirect way to donate to the good causes it helps. And third, through a more diffuse "halo effect," whereby its good deeds earn it greater consideration from consumers and others. Previous studies on CSR have had trouble differentiating these effects because consumers can be affected by all three. A recent study attempts to separate them by looking at bribery prosecutions under America"s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). It argues that since prosecutors do not consume a company"s products as part of their investigations, they could be influenced only by the halo effect. The study found that, among prosecuted firms, those with the most comprehensive CSR programmes tended to get more lenient penalties. Their analysis ruled out the possibility that it was firms" political influence, rather than their CSR stand, that accounted for the leniency: Companies that contributed more to political campaigns did not receive lower fines. In all, the study concludes that whereas prosecutors should only evaluate a case based on its merits, they do seem to be influenced by a company"s record in CSR. "We estimate that either eliminating a substantial labour-rights concern, such as child labour, or increasing corporate giving by about 20% results in fines that generally are 40% lower than the typical punishment for bribing foreign officials," says one researcher. Researchers admit that their study does not answer the question of how much businesses ought to spend on CSR. Nor does it reveal how much companies are banking on the halo effect, rather than the other possible benefits, when they decide their do-gooding policies. But at least they have demonstrated that when companies get into trouble with the law, evidence of good character can win them a less costly punishment.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

On Hunting Jobs with Fake Diplomas A. Title: On Hunting Jobs with Fake Diplomas B. Word limit: 160~200 words (not including the given opening sentence) C. Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: "Nowadays reports can be heard that some people use fake diplomas in their job hunting." OUTLINE: 1. The phenomenon of some people using fake diplomas in their job hunting 2. The reasons for this phenomenon 3. Ways to deal with it

During the next several weeks I went completely to the wolves. I took a tiny tent and set it up on the shore of bay. The big telescope was set up in the mouth of the tent in such a way that I could observe the wolves by day or night Quite by accident I had pitched my tent within ten yards of one of the major paths used by the wolves. Shortly after I had taken up residence, one of the wolves came back and discovered me and my tent, but he did not stop or hesitate in his pace. Later, one or more wolves used the track past my tent and never did they show the slightest interest in me. I felt uncomfortable at being so totally ignored. The next day I noticed a male wolf make boundary markers by passing water on the rounds of his family lands. Once I had become aware of the strong feeling of property rights which existed among the wolves, I decided to use this knowledge to make them at least recognize my existence. One evening, after they had gone off for their regular nightly hunt, I staked out a property claim of my own, including a long section of the wolves" path. In order to ensure that my claim would not be overlooked, I made a property mark on stones, dumps of moss, and patches of vegetation with a lot of tea. Before the hunters came back, task was done, and I retired, somewhat exhausted, to observe results.A few minutes later the leading male appeared. As usual he did not bother to glance at the tent, but when he reached the point where my property line intersected the trail, he stopped as abruptly as if he had run into an invisible wall. Cautiously he extended his nose and sniffed at one of my marked bushes. After a minute of hesitation he backed away a few yards and sat down. Then, he looked directly at the tent and at me. His glare seemed to become fiercer as I attempted to stare him down. The situation was becoming intolerable. To break the impasse I turned my back on the wolf. Then briskly, and with an air of decision, he turned his attention away from me and began a systematic tour of the area. I had staked out as my own. As he came to each boundary marker he sniffed it once or twice, then carefully placed his mark on the outside of mine.

Dreams are said to be the window to the mind. Through the study of dreams, we can catch glimpses into what our subconscious minds are thinking, or what is troubling us at our deepest levels. Not all dreams me the same, however, either in content or in meaning. In this respect, the study of bad dreams, nightmares, can yield interesting observations in regard to the mind and status of the dreamer. Indeed, nightmares appear to have been the subject of far more studies than more pleasant dreams, if for no other reason that while pleasant dreams are easily forgotten upon awakening, nightmares tend to linger in our minds is sufficient to demand attention. The sources of our dreams are most commonly attributed to factors in our waking lives. Whether it be emotional challenges, stress in the workplace, relationship problems or a myriad of other possible factors, the thoughts and feelings created in our waking environments are believed to directly influence the content of our dreams. A particular dramatic or traumatic experience during the day would no doubt be encountered again in some form or another during the night. Just as important as actual events in the determination of the content of our dreams are the preexisting beliefs that we hold. If we encounter some kind of phenomena in our dreams, it is very likely that we already believed in the possibility of the phenomena before the dream. For example, if someone dreams of being abducted by aliens, it"s very likely that, before the dream, he already believed in the existence of aliens. To the extent that dreams are direct reflections of our minds, they will reflect accurately what we believe and hold to be true. The way that we act in dreams bears consideration as well. Oftentimes, our behavior in our dreams reflects hidden desires for that type of behavior in our waking lives. Someone who dreams of revenge may actually desire revenge in real life, and likewise someone who dreams of adventure night after night may be experiencing his mind playing out a desire for more excitement in his everyday life. While the items encountered in our dreams are of great importance in the analysis of dreams, it must be recognized and understood that the same item in two different dreams can easily have entirely different meanings for the two dreamers. For example, a home in the dreams of an avid equestrian can signify comfort and relaxation, whereas the same home in the dreams of a hunter can represent excitement and challenge.

Conversations about elderly parents and technology usually center on safety, in particular on devices designed to alert a call center in case of trouble. But our parents are more than the sum of their maladies. Instead of keeping the safe, can't some of these devices help keep them happy? Experts say the key to making tech work for Mom and Dad is not to buy the newest cool thing, but to look for a device or software that fulfills a basic need, that does something they particular want to do. And it's helpful if the learning curve involves an element or two already familiar to them. "The question is what' s the motivation? " said Dr. Gary Small, the director of the center on aging at the university of California, Los Angeles, and the author of iBrain: surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind. "For technology to become 'sticky' with the older generation, we have to get into their heads and understand what make them think this is fun," he added. "The bells and whistles that might attract us are too counterintuitive." Dr. Small says that device for the elderly should answer three criteria, in this order: simplicity of use, availability of phone assistance and hardware that's easy to manipulate. Once installation and set-up are completely—likely the responsibility of a tech-sawy adult child—enjoyment has to outweigh effort. Beyond that, it is important to evaluate how large a technology leap an aging parent will be willing to take. Those who know their way around a VCR or DVD player will be a likelier to embrace a device that requires new equipment or an occasional call to a help number. Dr. Small like single-application devices that meet a personal need for the technological newcomer—like ones that send and receive e-mail, making it easier to stay in touch with family and see those digital photos of a new grandchild. Reading devices like the kindle are also popular with the older users, because they make an enjoyable, lifelong activity easier by replacing a heavy book with lightweight tablet. A reader can be ideal for a parent who travels and wants to take more than one book along. The right motivation can overcome a parent's doubt or anxiety about adopting new technology. Dr. Small' s father, a practicing physician in his 80s, avoided technology until the hospital where he worked switched to electronic records. Suddenly he had no choice. If he wanted to continue to work, he had to wade in. Dr. Cartensen says that electronic manufacturers have failed to develop products for elder users "because of stereotypes which suggest that older people aren't interested, even when they might be," and because marketers think "they can simply wait until younger cohorts grow old, knowing the problem will be solved." But there are signs of change on the horizon, several of them involving that most familiar of technologies, like the television set.

You are preparing an opening remark at a discussion on "Books are our best friends". Your remark should cover: 1) the value of books and 2) what a good book may be. You should write about 100 words and do not sign your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Carbon dioxide is a "greenhouse" gas, which means that it helps to trap heat in the atmosphere, (46) More carbon dioxide on the face of it means a hotter earth and that might lead to heaving seas, scorching summers, dying forests, and a watery end to the world"s coastal cities. But carbon dioxide is also an inevitable by-product of burning the fuels—coal, off and natural gas—that make an industrial way of life possible. The results of cutting its production could therefore be profound. People in rich countries might have to change their comfortable existence in order to consume less energy. (47) Those in countries trying to become rich might see their own aspirations to such comforts confounded, or at least delayed. It is therefore important to ask exactly how real the threat of global warming is, just what sort of climate change it implies, how imminently that change can be expected, and what the cheapest way to deal with any adverse consequences it brings would actually be. (48) That the greenhouse effect exists is not a matter of dispute. Joseph Fourier, a French physicist, theorized as far back as 1827 that the earth"s atmosphere acts rather like the glass of a plant-breeder"s hothouse: in other words, the air lets in the sun"s heat while slowing its release back into space. (49) Without this effect, the earth would be some 30"C colder than it is, and life would scarcely exist. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising for more than a century, as the use of fossil fuels has become widespread. And human activity also puts other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Though released in smaller quantities, some of these are more potent in their warmth-inducing effects than carbon dioxide. All told, manmade emissions account for slightly less than 4% of all greenhouse gases. That may not sound a lot, but this 4% is reckoned to have enhanced the earth"s average temperature by between 0.3℃ and 0.6℃ over the past years. And in matters climatic, small changes can sometimes have large consequences. (50) The glaciers that rumbled over Europe and North America during the last ice age, for example, were triggered by a fall of 2℃ in the average summer temperature around 115,000 years ago.

I would like to drink anything but coffee.

The winner takes all, it is widely supposed in computing circles. Indeed, geeks have coined a word, "Googlearchy", for the way in which search engines encourage web traffic towards the most popular sites. (46) The belief that search engines make popular websites ever more popular, at the expense of other pages, is now being challenged by research. (47) The apparently magical ability of search engines such as Google to return relevant websites even when given the sketchiest of clues by the person entering a query relies on the use of mathematical recipes or algorithms. Google works by analyzing the structure of the web itself. Each of its billions of pages can link to other pages and can also, in turn, be linked to by others. Furthermore, if the pages that link to this page are also important, then that page is even more likely to be important. (48) The algorithm has been made increasingly complex over the years, to deter those who would manipulate their pages to appear higher in the rankings, but it remains at the heart of Google"s success. Google is not alone in this. Many search engines take account of the number of links to a web site when they return the results of a search. (49) Because of this, there is a widespread belief among computer, social and political scientists that search engines create a vicious circle that amplifies the dominance of established and already popular websites. Pages returned by search engines are more likely to be discovered and consequently linked to by others. Not so, according to a controversial new paper that has recently appeared on arXiv, an online collection of physics and related papers. In it, Santo Fortunato and his colleagues at Indiana University in America and Bielefeld University in Germany claim that search engines actually have an egalitarian effect that increases traffic to less popular sites. The researchers developed a model that described two extreme cases. In the first, people browsed the web only by surfing random links. In the second, people only visited pages that were re turned by search engines. The researchers then turned to the real world. They plotted the traffic to a website—measured as the fraction of all page views made in a three-month period—against the number of incoming links made to that website. (50) To their surprise, they found that the relationship between the two did not lie between the extremes suggested by their model but somewhere completely different. It appears to show that the supposed bias in favour of popular pages is actually mitigated by the combination of search engines and people following random links.

Studythefollowingdrawingscarefullyandwriteanessayto1)describethedrawings,2)interprettheirmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwrite160-200wordsneatly.

Are burgers and fries a product of the profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent responsible for them? The author of this diatribe against multinational restaurant brands opts for the latter explanation. "There is nothing inevitable about the fast food nation that surrounds us", he concludes. "The triumph of McDonald"s and its imitators was by no means pre-ordained". But it happened nevertheless and in his view, it is to be blamed for many of the evils of modern America and their global spread. The emergence of the corporate colossus, followed inexorably by its deionization, is a familiar pattern in American business history. The modern phenomenon of fast food originated in California just before the Second World War. Its first manifestation was kerb service, with meals delivered to motorists by handsome young carhops. Richard and Maurice McDonald, who ran a drive-in burger bar in San Bernardino near Los Angeles, became tired of having constantly to replace their carhops and wash up crockery and dishes. In 1948 they decided to make customers serve themselves, while restricting the menu to items that could be prepared by unskilled cooks and eaten without plates, knives or forks. The McDonald brothers were soon bought out by the entrepreneurial Ray Kroc, who franchised their name and techniques so successfully that there is now scarcely a comer of the world that is free from their trademark golden arches, invariably spawning a cluster of rival chains selling hamburgers, pizzas, or fried chicken, handed out by smiling teenagers willing to accept minimal pay. They are cheap, cheerful, popular, and children love them. So just what is Mr. Schlosser"s beef? Apart from his nutritional reservations—too much fat, salt and sugar—he proves how. as the chains expanded, they were able to dictate terms to the suppliers of potatoes and ground beef, their staple ingredients. This caused an upheaval in agribusiness, as a few large suppliers quickly forced less efficient producers out of the market. The drive to keep down costs and increase the speed of production led to the employment of cheap unskilled labor and. to the widespread toleration of dangerous and unhygienic practices among growers and processors, which regulatory bodies have failed to police. Mr. Schlosser, who is a skillful and persuasive investigative reporter, sees all this as a damaging corruption of the free market. He is especially angered by promotional techniques aimed at impressionable children. A 1997 giveaway of Teenie Beanie Babies increased the sale of McDonalds" Happy Meals from 10m a week to 10m a day. And a survey found that 96% of American schoolchildren could identify Ronald McDonald, the chain"s mascot. Only Santa Claus scored higher.

As summer approaches, there is good news and bad in our latest Insider Advantage poll. With terrorism in the back of our minds and a terrible economy in the front of it, only 17% of American adults say they plan to travel less this summer than in the past, 24% say they will travel more and the rest say nothing has changed this vacation season from past ones. That"s the good news but the poll portends some bad news, too, indicating what might be a deep-seated problem in the United States today, harder to fathom than terrorist killers or empty wallets. The only age group that has more ambitious travel plans than ever is the 18—29 age group showing a 44 % jump in vacation plans over last year. That"s hardly great news for the travel and hospitality industry, which desperately need bigger spenders on the road. Beyond that, the wide disparity in travel plans among the younger and older says something about the just-out-of-college generation. Without impugning the work ethic of the many exceptions to the role, I think it"s safe to say that anyone with experience with the younger end of the work force must have been taken aback by the unrealistic expectations of the young and the restless as they set out to make their fortunes. They all seem to expect a salary based on their personal needs, not on their company"s professional ones. They want not only luxuries but also plenty of time to enjoy them. Old people like me are all the same in our bitter grousing and of course there are loads of hard-working young doctors; lawyers, business-people and others who contribute to their own individual and our collective economic well-being but there seems to be many more who don"t. The blame for their absurd sense of entitlement without personal sacrifice can most fairly be put on the shoulders of the generations that immediately precede them. This nation has changed its way of thinking about work and relaxation. What used to be a day"s holiday has morphed into a long weekend that starts on Thursday and ends next Tuesday? I find it unsurprising that young adults plan to travel more than ever this year, in spite of the hard times. They look to be following the road of less productivity in America, a road first mapped by their preceding elders, and now being paved by their offspring. It"s good to see young people venturing forth to see the world they live in, after all, youth is a fleeting thing but let"s just hope that when they finally return from their travels, they still have a job to pay for it.

I won"t be modest. I am gratified to discover that a paper I penned on inequality made its way into Matt Miller"s Washington Post column last week. Mr Miller asks why rising inequality has not【C1】______ America"s least-favored classes to agitate for a 【C2】______ . He agrees with my verdict: that access to【C3】______ goods among the least well-off has ensured that material inequality is not as【C4】______ as income inequality. 【C5】______ modern conveniences have taken some of the【C6】______ out of a relatively small income. This in turn has【C7】______ the drive to seek causes of and cures for【C8】______ "s discomfort. So the gap between rich and poor is sometimes less【C9】______, even if it is great and growing. Day-to-day experience is mostly a matter of our【C10】______ circumstances, and if those are【C11】______ enough, a widening gap in income, consumption or wealth is【C12】______ to come often to our attention. Even if the abstract fact of rising inequality does come across our radar, it may【C13】______ our sense of justice only if we"ve become convinced that inequality itself is【C14】______, or if we face related catastrophes. When I wrote the paper, official measures of income inequality had increased a good deal over the past few decades【C15】______ consumption inequality seemed to have remained【C16】______ New research suggests that consumption inequality has been increasing with income inequality【C17】______. This may be true, but it seems【C18】______ to the question of why America"s poor aren"t storming the barriers. The consumption data concerns how much we【C19】______, not how we experience what we buy, and that"s the real issue. Even if we could agree that inequality in real standards of living is rising, this is not something we actually experience unless we are hungry, or【C20】______ with the entertainments of our leisure.

Studythefollowingpicturescarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould:1)describethecartoon,pointoutthemessageconveyed;2)giveyourcomment.Youshouldwriteabout160—200wordsneatly.

The world is at an environmental crossroads where the choice between greed and humanity will decide the fate of millions of people for decades to come, the United Nations Environment Program(UNEP) said. "Fundamental changes are possible and required", UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer told a news conference presenting the third Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report. "It would be a disaster to sit back and ignore the picture painted", (46) The GEO-3 report, designed to kick world leaders into action ahead of the Johannesburg earth summit in late August, sees a bleak outlook for the future unless radical action is taken now. "The choices made today are critical for the forests, oceans, rivers, mountains, wildlife and other life support systems upon which current and future generations depend", it said. The report painted four possible scenarios(假定) ranging from the greed-driven "markets first" future to the caring and sharing "sustainability first" approach. Under the first three percent of the earth"s surface disappears under concrete by 2032, more than half the population is living with drought, 70 percent of the remaining land and animals are under threat and 16 billion tons of carbon dioxide is being belched(猛烈喷出) into the air each year from fossil fuels. (47) Under the latter scenario, cities and highways eat up less land, drought is kept at bay by better water management, the pressure on land and animals stabilizes and global carbon dioxide missions stabilize at just half the greed policy route. In the decade since the first world earth summit in Rio de Janeiro 58 species of fish, one mammal and one bird species have become extinct and a remaining quarter of the world"s mammals and one in eight of its birds are on the critical list. (48) Life giving forests are being tipped apart, fertile land is disappearing under concrete or into the sea and waterways are drying up or dying of pollution. Awful poverty, hunger and sickness are rampant(猖獗的) across the planet and the globalization of trade is carrying pollution with it on a global scale. (49) The world"s seas, already under attack from garbage and poisons, are also being plundered by man to the extent that nearly one-third of the world"s stock of fish is now ranked as used up, overexploited or recovering, the report said. But Toepfer, a former German environment minister, stressed that while the picture was bleak it was not beyond redemption(拯救). "This is an eye opener. The figures are not a nightmare prognosis(预后) for the sake of making a nightmare prognosis", he said, calling on the World Summit on Sustainable Development-dubbed the second world earth summit—to take urgent steps. "Decisive action can achieve positive results. (50) Our theme for Johannesburg is planet, people, prosperity", he said, urging the meeting to set clear, achievable and effective targets to tackle poverty and deprivation without destroying the environment. "We need a concrete action plan...concrete projects...and above all a clear political declaration", Toepfer said. "That is the most important of all". "We now have hundreds of declarations, agreements, guidelines and legally-binding treaties. Let us now find the political courage and the innovative financing needed to implement these deals", he added.

OverlyProtectedChildWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

You are just back from a tour and have some complaints to make about the tourist company. Write a letter to the manager of the company which includes the following points: 1. the purposes of writing the letter; 2. the services you were not satisfactory with; 3. the hope that they can give you some compensation. Write your letter using no less than 100 words. Write it neatly. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter, use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

BPart ADirections: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D./B