In most parts of the world, climate change is a worrying subject. Not so in California. At a recent gathering of green LUMINARIES—in a film star"s house, naturally, for that is how seriousness is often established in Los Angeles—the dominant note was self-satisfaction, at what the state has already achieved. And perhaps nobody is more complacent than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unlike Al Gore, a presidential candidate turned prophet of environmental doom, California"s governor sounds cheerful when talking about climate change. As well he might: it has made his political career. Although California has long been an environmentally-conscious state, until recently greens were concerned above all with smog and redwood trees. "Coast of Dreams", Kevin Starr"s authoritative history of contemporary, California, published in 2004, does not mention climate change. In that year, though, the newly-elected Mr. Schwarzenegger made his first tentative call for western states to seek alternatives to fossil fuels. Gradually he noticed that his efforts to tackle climate change met with less resistance, and more acclaim, than just about all his other policies. These days it can seem as though he works on nothing else. Mr. Schwarzenegger"s transformation from screen warrior to eco-warrior was completed last year when he signed a bill imposing legally-enforceable limits on greenhouse—gas emissions—a first for America. Thanks mostly to its lack of coal and heavy industry, California is a relatively clean state. If it were a country it would be the world"s eighth-biggest economy, but only its 16th-biggest polluter. Its big problem is transport—meaning, mostly, cars and trucks, which account for more than 40% of its greenhouse-gas emissions compared with 32% in America as a whole. The state wants to ratchet down emissions limits on new vehicles, beginning in 2009. Mr. Schwarzenegger has also ordered that, by 2020, vehicle fuel must produce 10% less carbon: in the production as well as the burning, so a simple switch to composed ethanol is probably out. Thanks in part to California"s example, most of the western states have adopted climate action plans. When it comes to setting emission targets, the scene can resemble a pose down at a Mr. Olympia contest. Arizona"s climate-change scholars decided to set a target of cutting the state"s emissions to 2000 levels by 2020. But Janet Napolitano, the governor, was determined not to be out-muscled by California. She has declared that Arizona will try to return to 2000 emission levels by 2012. California has not just inspired other states; it has created a vanguard that ought to be able to prod the federal government into stronger national standards than it would otherwise consider. But California is finding it easier to export its policies than to put them into practice at home. In one way, California"s serf-confidence is fully justified. It has done more than any other state—let alone the federal government—to fix America"s attention on climate change. It has also made it seem as though the problem can be solved. Which is why failure would be such bad news. At the moment California is a beacon to other states. If it fails, It will become an excuse for inaction.

Men are generally better than women on tests of spatial ability, such as mentally rotating an object through three dimensions or finding their way around in a new environment. But a new study suggests that under some circumstances a woman"s way of navigating is probably more efficient. Luis Pacheco-Cobos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and his colleagues discovered this by following mushroom gatherers from a village in the state of Tlaxcala for two rainy seasons. Two researchers, each fitted with GPS navigation devices and heart-rate monitors, followed different gatherers on different days. They recorded the weight of the mushrooms each gatherer collected and where they visited. The GPS data allowed a map to be made of the routes taken and the heart-rate measurements provided an estimate of the amount of energy expended during their travels. The results, to be published in Evolution and Human Behaviour, show that the men and women collected on average about the same weight of mushrooms. But the men travelled farther, climbed higher and used a lot more energy—70% more than the women. The men did not move any faster, but they searched for spots with lots of mushrooms. The women made many more stops, apparently satisfied with, or perhaps better at finding, patches of fewer mushrooms. Previous work has shown that men tend to navigate by creating mental maps of a territory and then imagining their position on the maps. Women are more likely to remember their routes using landmarks. The study lends support to the idea that male and female navigational skills were honed differently by evolution for different tasks. Modern-day hunter-gatherers divide labor, so that men tend to do more hunting and women more gathering. It seems likely that early humans did much the same thing. The theory is that the male strategy is the most useful for hunting prey; chasing an antelope, say, would mean running a long way over a winding route. But having killed his prey, the hunter would want to make a beeline for home rather than retrace his steps exactly. Women, by contrast, would be better off remembering landmarks and retracing the paths to the most productive patches of plants. The research suggests that in certain circumstances women are better at navigating than men, which might lend some comfort to a man desperately searching for an item in a supermarket while his exasperated wife methodically moves around the aisles filling the shopping trolley. He is simply not cut out for the job, evolutionarily speaking.

There is growing interest in East Japan Railway Co. ltd., one of the six companies, created out of the privatized national railway system. In an industry lacking exciting growth【C1】______ , its plan to use real-estate assets in and around train stations【C2】______is drawing interest. In a plan called "Station Renaissance" that it【C3】______ in November, JR East said that it would【C4】______using its commercial spaces for shops and restaurants, extending them to【C5】______more suitable for the information age. It wants train stations as pick-up【C6】______for such goods as books, flowers and groceries【C7】______ over the Internet. In a country where city 【C8】______ depend heavily on trains 【C9】______commuting, about 16 million people a day go to its train stations anyway, the company【C10】______. So, picking up commodities at train stations【C11】______ consumers extra travel and missed home deliveries. JR East already has been using its station【C12】______ stores for this purpose, but it plans to create 【C13】______spaces for the delivery of Internet goods. The company also plans to introduce 【C14】______cards—known in Japan as IC cards because they use integrated circuit for 【C15】______ information 【C16】______ train tickets and commuter passes【C17】______the magnetic ones used today, integrating them into a/an 【C18】______pass. This will save the company money, because 【C19】______for IC cards are much less expensive than magnetic systems. Increased use of IC cards should also【C20】______the space needed for ticket vending.

Research on embryonic stem cells is controversial because it requires the destruction of live human embryos. Supporters find it easy to minimize the significance of this fact because the embryos are only a few days old—nothing more than "blastocysts". But if it"s OK to destroy 5-day-old embryos to further scientific inquiry, is it OK to destroy embryos that are five weeks old? Five months? Eight months? Science can"t answer that question. You don"t have to be part of the pro-life movement to have qualms about this kind of scientific inquiry. James Thomson, the University of Wisconsin biologist who pioneered the field, has said, "If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough. " The president"s new order suggests we shouldn"t think too much. In 2001, supporters of embryonic stem cell research called on Bush to allow experiments using "surplus" frozen embryos in fertility clinics, arguing that they would be disposed of anyway. But Obama didn"t limit his new policy to these fertilized eggs. On the contrary, he left open the possibility of funding studies using embryos created specifically so their cells can be harvested—which Congress has barred, but which some advocates would like to allow. The president took no position on whether scientists should be permitted to create embryos for the sole purpose of dismembering them for their stem cells. He did, however, reject another option. "We will ensure," he said, "that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society. " But this position is hard to square with his professed approach. On one hand, the president says his policy is "about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion". On the other, he will use coercion to keep them from doing reproductive cloning. What this mandate means is simple: It may be permissible for scientists to create cloned embryos and kill them. It"s not permissible to create cloned embryos and let them live. Their cells may be used for our benefit, but not for their own. There lies the reality of embryonic stem cell research: It turns incipient human beings into commodities to be exploited for the sake of people who are safely past that defenseless stage of their lives. It"s a change that poses risks not just to days-old human embryos. The rest of us may one day reap important medical benefits from this research. But we may lose something even more vital.

It seems simple enough to distinguish between the organism and the surrounding environment and to separate forces acting on an organism into those that are internal and biological and those that are external and environmental.

You are preparing to recommend one of your students for an internship in Apple. Write a letter of recommendation to the Apple HR and state the reasons why you recommend this student. 1. You should write about 100 words. 2. Do not sign your own name at the end of your letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. 3. Do not write the address.

Write a letter to one of your high school classmates who is in a nearby city, and invite him/her to your city at this weekend. Some necessary details must be included. Write your letter neatly with no less than 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Ever since they were first staged in 19th century Europe, world"s fairs have enabled people from around the globe to visit wondrous pavilions where they can discover distant lands and new technologies. The 2006 world"s fair is no exception, but it also has a decidedly new- era twist: the whole event happens in cyberspace. A nonprofit project dreamed up by Americans Carl Malamud, a computer consultant, and Vinton Cerf, and Internet pioneer and telecommunications-company vice president, the Internet 2006 World Exposition is a digital work in progress, a multi-chambered forum that cybernauts can help build and renovate throughout the year—and perhaps long after the fair"s official close in December. While high-tech pavilions set up by sponsoring corporations are featured prominently, as in real fairs, this virtual exposition is closer in spirit and reality to a vast bustling bazaar, a marketplace for the talents and offerings of thousands of individuals and small groups. Anyone with a computer and a modem can not only "attend" but also participate as an exhibitor by creating an individual multimedia Website. Getting the fair up and running was by no means easy. Malamud, 36, spent the past year shuttling among 30 countries, lobbying companies that initially dismissed the project as unwieldy and unworkable. While some nations immediately supported the idea, others completely missed the point of Malamud"s vision: to make the fair a public-works project that focuses on what the Internet can offer expert or novice. Once grass-roots groups started backing the project, though, businesses were not far behind. By donating equipment and services, these companies will gain access to millions of potential consumers eager to see the firms" latest technologies. Since the exposition"s Jan. 1 launch, as many as 40,000 visitors each day from more than 40 countries have tried the major Websites. Most virtual visitors log on from the U.S and Japan, but the United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Singapore and Estonia have been represented. Comments logged in the fair"s guest book are overwhelmingly positive. "Wow, the world is shrinking", wrote a visitor from the Netherlands. Since their initial hesitancy, the major sponsors-primarily telecommunications and software companies—have become firm believers. Beyond the diversity of content and international scope, the fair is a technological marvel. The fastest international link ever installed, this pipeline could be the first step toward laying a permanent network that will eventually hardwire every nation in the world into the Internet. The organizers hope that the infrastructure—and awareness-nurtured by this exposition will launch a boom in Net use.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) Last year"s economy should have won the Oscar for best picture. Growth in gross domestic product was 4.1 percent; profits soared; exports flourished; and inflation stayed around 3 percent for the third year. (41)______. Jobs insecurity was rampant. Even as they announced higher sales and profits, corporations acted as if they were in a tailspin, cutting 516,069 jobs in 2003 alone, almost as many as in the recession year of 1991. Yes, unemployment went down. But over one million workers were so discouraged they left the labor force. More than 6 million who wanted full-time work were only partially employed; and another large group was either overqualified or sheltered behind the euphemism of self-employment. We lost a million good manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2002, continuing the trend that has reduced the blue-collar work force from about 30 percent in the 1950s to about half of that today. (42)______. All this happened in a country where people meet for the first time saying, "What do you do?" Then there is the matter of remuneration. The Labor Department recently reported that real wages fell 2.3 percent in the 12-month period ending this March. Since 1973, wages adjusted for inflation have declined by about a quarter for high school dropouts, by a sixth for high school graduates and by about 7 percent for those with some college education. Only the wages of college graduates are up, by 5 percent, and recently starting salaries, even for this group, have not kept up with inflation. While the top 5 percent of the population was setting new income records almost every year, poverty rates rose from 11 percent to 15 percent. (43)______. In previous business cycles, companies with rising productivity raised wages to keep labor. Is the historical link between productivity improvements and income growth served? (44)______. Just think that in 1976, 78 percent of auto workers and steel-workers in good mass production jobs were high school dropouts. But these jobs are disappearing fast. Education and job training are what count. These days college graduates can expect to earn 1.9 times the likely earnings of high school graduates, up from 1.45 times in the 1970s. (45)______. American males now toil about a week and a half longer than they did in 1973, the first time working hours have increased over an extended period of time. Women, particularly in poorer families, are working harder, too. Two-worker families rose by more than 20 percent in the 1990s. Seven million workers hold at least two jobs, the highest proportion in half a century. America is simply not growing fast enough to tighten the labor market and push up real wages.A. Otherwise, an angry, disillusioned and frustrated population—whose rage today is focused on big government, excess taxes, immigration, welfare and affirmative action—may someday be brought together by its sense of diminished hopes. Then we will all be in for a very difficult time.B. No wonder this is beginning to be called the Silent Depression. What is going on here?C. The danger of the information age is that while in the short run it may be cheaper to replace workers with technology, in the long run it is potentially self-destructive because there will not be enough purchasing power to grow the economy.D. So why did so many Americans give the picture a lousy B rating? The answer is jobs. The macroeconomic situation was good, but the microeconomic numbers were not. Yes, 3 million new jobs were there, but not enough of them were permanent, good jobs paying enough to sup-port a family.E. The earning squeeze on middle-class and working-class people and the scarcity of "good, high-paying" jobs will be the big political issue. Americans have so far responded to their falling fortunes by working harder.F. White-collar workers found out they were no longer immune. For the fist time, they were let go in numbers virtually equal to those for blue-collar workers. Many resorted to temporary work-with lower pay, fewer benefits and less status.G. Of all the reasons given for the wage squeeze—international competition, technology, deregulation, the decline of unions and defense cuts—technology is probable the most crucial. It has favored the educated and skilled.

The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-G. Some of the paragraphs have been placed for you. (10 points)A. A BBC television series has raised the question of whether cats should be kept indoors at night. Wildlife experts say keeping cats locked up from dusk to dawn will prevent much of the carnage 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 neighbours" cats in their gardens".B. Even today, some view the black cat as an omen of misfortune. Even the English language is stacked against the moggy. Spiteful people are dubbed as being "catty". A raucous cry is a "caterwaul". At work, a greedy, lazy boss is a "fat cat".C. A new survey in the UK indicates that cats come second only to rats as the latest favorite mammal to visit our gardens. The UK"s 10 million cats have had it rough of late, drawing harsh criticism because of their bloodlust and habit of viewing the nation"s gardens as their own personal toilets.D. 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 to their plots—voting them only slightly more popular than rats in the new poll.E. 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 hunter. 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."F. But, to be fair, the British can"t hate cats that much. 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.G. 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?Order: G is the first paragraph and F is the last.

The U.S. government has recently helped people learn more about the dangers of earthquakes by publishing a map. This map shows the chances of an earthquake in each part of the country. The areas of the map where earthquakes are most likely to occur are called earth quake "belts" where government is spending a great deal of money and is working hard to help discover the answer to these two questions; 1. Can we predict earthquakes? 2. Can we control earthquakes? To answer the first question, scientists are looking very closely at the most active fault(断层) systems in the country, such as the San Andreas fault in California. A fault is a. break between two sections of the earth"s surface. These breaks between sections are the places where earthquakes occur. Scientists look at the faults for changes, which might show that an earthquake was about to occur. But it will probably be many years before we can predict earthquakes accurately. And the control" of earthquakes is even farther away. Nevertheless, there have been some interesting developments in the field of controlling earthquakes. The most interesting development concerns the Rocky Mountain Arsenal earthquakes. Here water was put into a layer of rocks 4,000 meters below the surface of the ground. Shortly after this injection of water, there were a small number of earthquakes. Scientists have decided that the water which was injected into the rocks worked like oil on each other. When the water "oiled" the fault, the fault became slippery and the energy of an earthquake was released. Scientists are still experimenting at the site of these earthquakes. They have realized that there is a connection between the injection of the water and the earthquake activity. They have suggested that it might be possible to use this knowledge to prevent very big, destructive earthquakes, that is, scientists could inject some kind of fluid-like water into faults and change one big earthquake into a number of small, harmless earthquakes.

【F1】 The value which society places on work has traditionally been closely associated with the value of individualism and as a result it has had negative effects on the development of social security. It has meant that in the first place the amount of benefits must be small lest people' s willingness to work and support themselves suffers. Even today with flat rate and earnings-related benefits, the total amount of the benefit must always be smaller than the person's wages for fear of malingering."The purpose of social security," said Huntford referring to Sweden's comparatively generous benefits, "is to dispel need without crossing the threshold of prosperity." Second, social security benefits are granted under conditions designed to reduce the likelihood of even the boldest of spirits attempting to live on the State rather than work. Many of the rules surrounding the payment of unemployment or supplementary benefit are for this purpose. Third, the value placed on work is manifested in a more positive way as in the case of disability.【F2】 People suffering from accidents incurred at work or from occupational diseases receive preferential treatment by the social security service compared with those suffering from civil accidents and ordinary illnesses. Yet, the stranglehold which work has had on the social security service has been increasingly loosened over the years. The provision of family allowances, family income supplements, the slight liberalization of the wages stop are some of the manifestations of this trend.【F3】 Similarly, the preferential treatment given to occupational disability by the social security service has been increasingly questioned with the demands for the upgrading of benefits for the other types of disability. It is felt that in contemporary industrial societies the distinction between occupational and non-occupational disability is artificial for many non-occupational forms of disability have an industrial origin even if they do not occur directly in the workplace.【F4】 There is also the additional reason which we mentioned in the argument for one benefit for all one-parent families, that a modern social security service must concentrate on meeting needs irrespective of the cause behind such needs. The relationship between social security and work is not all a one-way affair.【F5】 It is true that until very recently the general view was that social security "represented a type of luxury and was essentially anti-economic." It was seen as merely government expenditure for the needy. As we saw, however, redundancy payments and earnings-related unemployment benefits have been used with some success by employers and the government to reduce workers' opposition towards loss of their jobs.

When recruiting at British universities, PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the Big Four auditing firms with its headquarters in the New York City, presents candidates with an unusual exercise. They are asked to build a tall and sturdy tower using the smallest possible number of snap-together Lego bricks. Similarly, at Google Games, a recruiting event first staged by the search-engine giant inApril, candidates are invited to build Lego bridges—the stronger the better. In each case, the company is trying to convey the idea that it offers a creative, fun working environment. "It was as much advertising as a way of trying to get recruits," says Brett Daniel, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who built the Google Games" weakest bridge. A Danish firm, based in Billund, Denmark, has embraced the corporate use of its colored plastic bricks. As part of a scheme called "Serious Play" it is certifying a growing number of professional Lego consultants, now present in 25 countries. They coach managers by getting them to build "metaphorical abstractions" of such things as corporate strategy, says Lego"s Jesper Jensen, who runs the scheme. Hisham El-Gamal of Quest, a management consultancy based in Cairo that offers Serious Play workshops, says demand for the two-day, $7,000 courses is booming. Firms in crisis, such as those corrupted by scandal or in the pains of a takeover, tend to be most receptive to the idea of Lego workshops, says Franc, oisde Boissezon of Imagics, a consultancy based in Brussels. The results can be embarrassing, particularly for senior managers. Tsai Yu-Chen of UGene Mentor, a Serious Play consultancy based in Taipei, says a common exercise is modeling, but not naming, "the people you hate most". One chief executive was modeled as a figure so fat that he blocked a hallway, suggesting he was clogging up the company. Lego workshops are effective because child-like play is a form of instinctive behavior not regulated by conscious thought, says Lucio Margulis of Juego Serio, a consultancy in Buenos Aires. This produces "Eureka" moments: a perfectionist who realizes the absurdity of frustration over an imperfect Lego construction; the owner of a firm with dismal customer relations who models headquarters as a fort under siege; or an arrogant boss who depicts his staff as soldiers headed into battle. Even in the office, it seems, Lego has a part to play.

A. The Responsibility of Companies to Reduce Waste B. Means Adopted to Reduce Household Waste C. The Drawbacks of Fly-tipping D. Producers" Effort on Waste Reduction E. Obstacles to the New Programme F. The Role Consumers Play in Reducing Waste G. The Significance of Generating Less Rubbish Until recently most people in the waste industry had assumed that it was impossible to reduce the amount being produced and were concentrating on putting the stuff to better use. But lately that assumption has been challenged. For one thing, the pace at which the rich world churns out rubbish has been slowing. 【C1】______. Reducing the amount of waste being produced makes a great deal of sense, provided it does not cost more, in either environmental or financial terms, than disposing of it in the usual way. Governments hope it might help to trim both greenhouse-gas emissions and waste-management costs. But they are not sure how best to encourage it. 【C2】______ Some are trying to persuade consumers to throw away less. The simplest method is to collect the rubbish less often. In areas of Britain where the dustmen come round only every other week, recycling rates are 10% higher than elsewhere. Another tactic is to make households pay by volume for the rubbish they generate, rather than through a flat fee or through local taxes. Many places in Europe, America and Asia have adopted "pay-as-you-throw" schemes. About a quarter of Americans live in communities with such programmes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reckons that they reduce the volume of rubbish by 14-27% and increase recycling(which usually remains free)by 32-59%. 【C3】______. However, there are drawbacks. 1%-tipping—the illegal dumping of waste—tends to rise slightly as people try to avoid paying. And householders generally grumble a lot if they have to pay extra to have their rubbish collected. In addition, most local authorities have simply decided against the idea. When the British government offered them money to experiment with pay-as-you-throw schemes earlier this year, no one signed up. 【C4】______. Businesses are generally seen as a softer target than consumers. It can be argued that manufacturers bear some responsibility for the amount of waste rich countries produce. They often have an incentive to reduce waste anyway, since most already pay for disposal by volume. There is even a name for the steady reduction in materials used to make the same goods: "lightweighting". It is not only electronic gadgets that have become smaller and lighter over the years even as their performance has improved but many other things too, from cars to plastic bags. 【C5】______. In theory, consumers could steer firms towards waste reduction by buying products that are easy to recycle. To some extent this is happening. Tesco"s Alasdair. James says British consumers rank the environment as their third priority after price and convenience. Further, if governments oblige manufacturers to include the cost of disposal in their prices, firms will pass those costs on to consumers, who will have an incentive to buy the products that are the easiest to dispose of. Many governments are currently trying to give greenery an extra push with compulsory waste-reduction schemes. Thirty-six states in America, for example, charge for the disposal of tyres. The states spend the money on clean-up programmes or pay others to run such programmes. Many of the tyres are blended into road surfaces or burned in cement kilns. Several other states have "advance recovery fees" for computer monitors and televisions. All this should provide a spur to the waste industry and speed the adoption of new technology.

[A] Negotiation Is a Two-way Street[B] Correct Common Negotiation Mistakes[C] Do the Right Kind of Homework[D] Don"t Be Afraid to Have Difficult Conversations[E] Tactic Is Dictated by Situation[F] Try to Ask Good Questions[G] Deal with Issues Upfront "Most people think of negotiation only when they need to get something more, " says Tammy Lenski, a professional mediator who helps universities and businesses nationwide with conflict management. "The reality is that at work, pretty much every conversation is a negotiation. You"re negotiating deadlines, the quality level, what might be taken off your plate to make room for this priority project and what benefit you might get for taking on that project. The minute you walk into the workplace in the morning, you"re negotiating. " Here are some of Lenski"s tips on becoming a good negotiator — and improving your situation at work:41. People either are too confrontational or cave in because they"re afraid to ask some basic questions. "If people think of a negotiation more as a conversation than something that needs to be won, they"ll do much better, " says Tammy Lenski.42. Playing hardball in the office can backfire when you need to work with your coworkers every day. "You have an ongoing relationship with these folks, and you"re trying to not leave debris, " Lenski says. "People need to stop thinking about negotiating as getting more of what I need, which means getting less of what you need." Instead, find out the other person"s needs, and try to come to a conclusion that helps both of you. "The best negotiating is using the really good human relation skills in an effective way, " Lenski says. "It isn"t about pushing or convincing or manipulating the other person. It"s about having them figure out what they want and how you can help them get it. "43. In negotiations, you know what you want. But you also need to find out what the other side wants in return. It"s most efficient if you just ask openly. When starting her private practice 10 years ago, Lenski presented her fee to provide conflict-management services to a company in turmoil. The department head asked her to slash her price 20 percent. Lenski said this was her bottom-line number, but the department head said everything is negotiable. Lenski then asked the essential question: "Why do you believe everything is negotiable?" The department head explained the head of finance would ask if she bargained and got a good deal. At that point, Lenski crossed out the original fee and wrote a new one that was about 25 percent higher. "Will this work?" she asked. The department head said, "Well, I"ll have to offer you 20 percent less than that. " And they had a deal.44. Instead of keeping quiet and thus becoming resentful, "negotiating is figuring out how to raise the things that are bothering you so they can be sorted out, " Lenski says. Instead of just thinking about what might make it difficult to accomplish your goal, talk with your boss about those issues right away. "It"s much more helpful in general to think about under what conditions you might make it possible, and how can you help me do that," Lenski says.45. Lenski says people tend to waste a lot of time worrying about scary negotiation scenarios. "They go into it thinking about all the ways it can go wrong," she says, even though the negotiation generally turns out much better than expected. "Instead, they should spend their time thinking of it from the perspective of the other person. What would make them want to join with you to figure things out? Not what will make them change their mind, but what will make them want to sort this out with me. Invite them into joint problem-solving. "

MadeinChinavs.CreatedinChinaWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Never underestimate the learning power of play. One of Parks" findings is that children【C1】______valuable learning opportunities when unstructured play is reduced or eliminated【C2】______more time in the classroom. "I think a lot of public school systems【C3】______to see the importance of play," says Parks, assistant professor of early childhood education. "【C4】______, play is under-valued and lot of that is because of top-down【C5】______over standards and testing." "Their work is often framed in trying to【C6】______out what"s wrong with these kids. It"s very【C7】______and not at all what I【C8】______as a classroom teacher. " "I found the children【C9】______to learn, and their families were supportive and curious," she adds. "So when I got to academia, I thought it was【C10】______to read all these studies about kids not being【C11】______, or not being able to solve problems." So she【C12】______her own research project with a different approach. She is【C13】______the same minority group of 14 young children for three years, starting in【C14】______, to see how they learn mathematics, both in the【C15】______classroom setting as well as informally in school, and at home. "Just sitting there, looking at what is happening in their 【C16】______surroundings, you can find things that【C17】______you," she says. She hopes her research will prove how important play is to【C18】______ problem-solving skills, and in other critical ways. 【C19】______there is something else, just as important for Parks. "It is the equity piece of trying to change the conversation in the research community about what kids can do generally, and what minority kids can do【C20】______," she says.

It takes a whole galaxy of things to make you happy. Happiness is a state you feel when you have no problems, worries, doubts or other negative things affecting your life. You do not need to receive great news, excitement or wealth: it comes from enjoying life whatever it brings. Someone who has mastered the art of happiness will enjoy sitting with a cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich. The person who has mastered being sad will always want more and dream of more but never achieve it. A person who has won a fortune on the lottery might be happy, but if they then begin to worry about the best way of looking after that money, whether or not to invest all of it or most of it, where to invest it or how to get rid of the many people who pester them for hand outs, their happiness might be short lived. Another person might be happy because they enjoy their job, have some great friends and a wonderful partner and no debts. In a way the more we want and the more we think we are entitled to, the less likely we are to be happy. If we can accept that we will have bad days as well as good days, and that nobody" s life runs smoothly, then we have the key to happiness. If we are proactive about defining our goals and making them happen we are more likely to be happy. Contrary to popular belief happiness is not about being rich, young, good looking, fit and healthy. There are people who are blind, very poor and have lots of problems, yet they are happy because they make the most of their lives, concentrate on the good things and do what they can about the bad. Instead of worrying about all sorts of things that might never happen or dwelling on the negatives in their life, they are grateful for anything good and nice that comes their way. Happiness is about being proud of who you are, respecting yourself, respecting your background, your persona and all that goes with it. Not how much money you have or how hard you work. Many convince themselves that they will be happy next year or when they retire and have a lot more time. But then when the year is up or they retire they are still not happy. That is because they do not see the good in things.

The subject of my study is a woman who is initiating social change in a small region in Texas. The women are Mexican Americans who are, or were, migrant agricultural workers. There is more than one kind of innovation at work in the region, of course, but I have chosen to focus on three related patterns of family behavior. The pattern I lifestyle represents how migrant farm workers of all nationalities lived in the past and how many continue to live. I treat this pattern as a baseline with which to compare the changes represented by pattern II and III. Families in pattern I work and travel in ex tended kin units, with the eldest male occupying the position of authority. Families are large? Eight or nine children are not unusual? And all members are economic contributors in this strategy of family migration. Families in pattern II manifest some differences in behavior while still maintaining aspects of pattern I. They continue to migrate but on a reduced scale, often modifying their schedules of migration to allow children to finish the school year. Parents in this pattern often find temporary local jobs as checkers to make up for lost farming income. Pat tern II families usually have fewer children than do pattern I families. The greatest amount of change from pattern I, however, is in pattern III families, who no longer migrate at all. Both parents work full time in the area and have an average of three children. Children attend school for the entire year. In pattern III, the women in particular create new roles for themselves for which no local models exist. They not only work full time but may, in addition, return to school. They also assume a greater responsibility in family decisions than do women in the other patterns. Although these women are in the minority among residents of the region, they serve as role models for others, causing moderate changes to spread in their communities. Now opportunities have continued to be determined by pre-existing values. When federal jobs became available in the region, most involved working under the direction of female professionals such as teachers or nurses. Such positions were unaccepted to many men in the area because they were not accustomed to being subordinate to women. Women therefore took the jobs, at first, because the income was desperately needed. But some of the women decided to stay at their jobs, at first, after the family"s distress, was over. These women enjoyed their work, its responsibility, and the companionship of fellow women workers. The steady, relatively high income allowed their families to stop migrating. And, as the benefits to these women became increasingly apparent, they and their families became even more willing to consider changes in their lives that they would not have considered before.

The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is notoriously toxic. Since 1869, the mile-long waterway has been a dumping ground for garbage, industrial waste, guns and body parts—its waters once too dirty to search. Today you can still stand on a bridge over the canal and see underwear floating on the water. The odor, once almost unbearable, has softened into an occasional summerstink, thanks to a flushing tunnel installed 10 years ago.A growing number of artists and young people have moved into the industrial lofts and row houses nearby. Some of the most oblivious have been spotted on the canal in canoes, their paddles stirring 140 years worth of detritus (small pieces of rubbish) from leather factories, chemical plants and more. Now, these Gowanus pioneers want somebody to finally detoxify their hazardous neighborhood. They imagine it as Brooklyn"s little Venice, although a bit cleaner. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering naming the Gowanus an official Superfund site. That would bring in a slow but steady federal cleanup with money and the legal influence to force polluters to help pay. The present Mayor of the New York City also wants a cleaner Gowanus, but he wants to do it his way. At a community board meeting Tuesday night, about 200 people listened as the mayor"s experts argued against a Superfund listing. It was a hard crowd to move. Many wore a button that said it all: "Gowanus Canal: Superfund Me." The mayor and his team are particularly worried about how a Superfund site would affect the real estate market, especially a few possibilities for larger developments in the area. Instead of being "stigmatized" by the Superfund label, as they put it, they favor the "Superfund Alternative" plan. Although there are few details at this point, that effort would be run by the city and overseen by the EPA Every year, the city would rush to collect funds from the Corps of Engineers and other agencies to help clean up the area to the EPA"s satisfaction. The city could only plead with polluters to help pay. With so many pollutants and so many polluters, this looks like a job for Superfund. Brooklyn can handle the label. Residents already enjoy boasting about their survival or joking about living near the canal"s dark humors. Why else have a popular bar called the Gowanus Yacht Club? They just want the cleanup done and done right.