You have arranged tea party and have invited your friend Tom/Mary. But now you have something urgent and you have to put the tea party off and set a new date. Then you have to write a note to Tom/Mary to apologize and arrange another date. Imagine some details about the reason and the new arrangement. Write your note 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.
Studythefollowinggraphcarefullyandwriteanessayinabout200words.Youressayshouldcoveralltheinformationprovidedandmeettherequirementsbelow:1)interpretthefollowinggraph.2)possiblereasonsforthephenomenon.3)yourcomments.
BSection II Reading Comprehension/B
Manufacturers of everything from running shoes to deodorants, a substance to remove unpleasant odors, design products specifically for women. One of the latest entries: the first artificial joint created for—and heavily advertised to— females. Doctors say it"s too soon to tell whether the Gender Knee represents a giant leap for womankind or if it gives its maker, Zimmer Holdings Inc., a leg up in the market. In the case of the knees, according to Zimmer, here"s how men and women are different: First, the kneecap, is thinner in women. Also, women"s wider hips create a different angle between the knee and pelvis—the wide, curved group of bones at the level of hips, which can mean the kneecap gets pulled to the side when the muscles contract. And the end of the thighbone is typically narrower in men. Most artificial knees were modeled on the male anatomy—which may explain why knee replacements in women aren"t as successful when measured by reported pain and do-over rates. But will the new(and more expensive)replacement actually serve women better? "In theory, yes, but the evidence isn"t there," says Kimberly Templeton, an associate professor of orthopedic surgery(prevention or correction of disorders of the bones and associated muscles and joints)at the University of Kansas Medical Center and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Sheryl Conley, Zimmer"s chief marketing officer, says seven studies now underway will look at patient satisfaction and range of motion. Preliminary data will be available in a year or so. Anatomical differences aside, Templeton says, replacement knees may not perform well in women in part because females tend to delay surgery—sometimes until they"re bound to the house by disability. In addition, it"s not clear that the manufacturer"s specialized design will translate to less pain, says Steven Haas, an orthopedic surgeon and chief of the knee service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. For example, making the front of the replacement knee thinner by one twenty-fifth of an inch won"t necessarily make a noticeable difference to recipients. Having a correctly fitted device is clearly important, says Haas, who notes that other companies have modified their smaller knees to account for gender differences in anatomy.(Haas has consulted with Smith & Nephew, a rival to Zimmer.) More important, says Haas, is to find a skillful surgeon. Differences between implants, he argues, are relatively minor compared to the technique of the surgeon putting them in.
BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B
BSection III Writing/B
Picture-taking is a technique both for reflecting the objective world and for expressing the singular self. Photographs depict objective realities that already exist, though only the camera can disclose them. And they depict an individual photographer"s temperament, discovering itself through the camera"s cropping of reality. That is, photography has two directly opposite ideals: in the first, photography is about the world and the photographer is a mere observer who counts for little; but in the second, photography is the instrument of fearlessness, questing subjectivity and the photographer is all. These conflicting ideals arise from uneasiness on the part of both photographers and viewers of photographs toward the aggressive component in "taking" a picture. Accordingly, the ideal of a photographer as observer is attracting because it implicitly denies that picture-taking is an aggressive act. The issue, of course, is not so clear-cut. What photographers do cannot be characterized as simply predatory or as simply, and essentially, benevolent. As a consequence, one ideal of picture-taking or the other is always being rediscovered and championed. An important result of the coexistence of these two ideals is a recurrent ambivalence toward photography"s means. Whatever are the claims that photography might make to be a form of personal expression just like painting, its originality is closely linked to the power of a machine. The steady growth of these powers has made possible the extraordinary informativeness and imaginative formal beauty of many photographs, like Harold Edgerton"s high-speed photographs of a bullet hitting its target or of the swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke. But as cameras become more sophisticated, more automated, some photographers are tempted to disarm themselves or to suggest that they are not really armed, preferring to submit themselves to the limit imposed by pre-modern camera technology because a cruder, less high-powered machine is thought to give more interesting or emotive results, to leave more room for creative accident. For example, it has been virtually a point of honor for many photographers, including Walker Evans and Cartier Bresson, to refuse to use modern equipment. These photographers have come to doubt the value of the camera as an instrument of "fast seeing". Cartier Bresson, in fact, claims that the modern camera may see too fast. This ambivalence toward photographic means determines trends in taste. The cult of the future (of faster and faster seeing) alternates over time with the wish to return to a purer past when images had a handmade quality. This longing for some primitive state of the photographic enterprise is currently widespread and underlies the present-day enthusiasm for daguerreotypes and the work of forgotten nineteenth-century provincial photographers. Photographers and viewers of photographs, it seems, need periodically to resist their own knowingness.Notes:crop vt.播种，修剪(树木),收割。count for little 无关紧要。predatory 掠夺成性的。champion n.冠军; vt.支持。benevolent 好心肠的，行善的。ambivalence 矛盾心理。make (+不定式)似乎要：He makes to begin. (他似乎要开始了)。swirls and eddies 漩涡。cult 狂热崇拜。daguerreotype 银板照相法。
"Poverty", wrote Aristotle, "is the parent of crime." But was he right? Certainly, poverty and crime are【C1】______. And the idea that a lack of income might drive someone to【C2】______sounds plausible. But research by Amir Sari-aslan casts【C3】______on the chain of causation— at least as far as violent crime and the misuse of【C4】______are concerned. Sariaslan consulted the【C5】______collected by Scandinavian governments which contained information about people"s annual family incomes and criminal【C6】______. In Sweden the age of criminal responsibility is 15, so Sariaslan【C7】______his subjects from the dates of their 15th birthdays【C8】______, for an average of three-and-a-half years. When he looked at families which had started poor and got richer, the younger children—those born into relative【C9】______—were just as likely to misbehave as the elder children. Family income was, in itself not the【C10】______factor. That suggests two【C11】______. One is that a family"s culture, once established, is "【C12】______"— that you can take the kid out of the neighborhood,【C13】______not the neighborhood out of the kid.【C14】______children"s inclination to imitate elder brothers or sisters whom they admire, that sounds【C15】______plausible. The other is that genes which make them susceptible to criminal behavior are common at the【C16】______of society, perhaps because the lack of impulse-control also tends to reduce someone"s earning capacity. Neither of these conclusions is likely to be welcome to【C17】______reformers. They suggest that merely【C18】______people"s incomes will not by itself address questions of bad behavior. Such conclusions will need to be【C19】______by others. If they are confirmed, the fact that they are【C20】______will be no excuse for ignoring them.
The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, was supposed to transform American health insurance. Critics have long feared that it would do much more. Republicans have cast Obamacare as a job-killing, economy-crushing villain. On February 4th they appeared to get more ammunition from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO, as part of its projection of economic growth over the next decade, estimates that Obamacare will lower full-time employment by 2.3m in 2021, compared with what might have been without reform, and by 2.5m in 2025. The main reason is not that firms are already slashing jobs to avoid the burden the law imposes, as Republicans have complained, but that Americans will choose to work less. The insight that Obamacare would lower the supply of labour is not new, but the magnitude of the CBO's estimate is—the 2.3m drop in 2021 is nearly three times larger than the CBO's earlier projection. Many factors account for the decline. Chief among them is the effect of subsidies for health insurance. To help Americans buy coverage on new health "exchanges", Obamacare offers tax credits to those earning between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty line (about $11,500 to $46,000 for a single adult). Those tax credits are offered on a sliding scale, by income, so workers in effect pay a higher tax rate as their wages rise. This may dissuade them from trying to earn more. The White House, mining the report for good news, argued that Obamacare liberates American workers. "At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams," the White House press secretary said in a statement. "This CBO report bears that out." The supply-side effects are not all bad. Some Americans, no longer tied to their employer-provided insurance, may feel freer to take better jobs or start their own businesses. But this effect is unlikely to offset the ranks of people who choose to work less, or not at all. And although leisure is often agreeable, does America really want to encourage its citizens to put their feet up?
When one of his employees phoned in sick last year, Scott McDonald, CEO of Monument Security in Sacramento, California,, decided to investigate. He had already informed his staff of 400 security guards and patrol drivers that he was installing Xora, a software program that tracks workers" whereabouts through GPS technology on their company cell phones. A Web-based "geo-fence" aroundwork territories would alert the boss if workers strayed or even drove too fast. It also enabled him to route workers more efficiently. So when McDonald logged on, the program told him exactly where his worker was—and it wasn"t in bed with the sniffles. "How come you"re eastbound on 80 heading to Reno right now if you"re sick?" asked the boss. There was a long silence—the sound of a job ending— followed by, "You got me." Learn that truth, and learn it well: what you do at work is the boss"s business. Xora is just one of the new technologies from a host of companies that have sprung up in the past two years peddling products and services—software, GPS, video and phone surveillance, even investigators—that let managers get to know you really well. "Virtually nothing you do at work on a computer can"t be monitored," says Jeremy Gruber, legal director of the National Workrights Institute, which advocates workplace privacy. Nine out of 10 employers observe your electronic behavior, according to the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College. A study by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute found 76% of employers watch you surf the Web and 36% track content, keystrokes and time spent at the keyboard. You can"t really blame companies for watching our Web habits, since 45% of us admit that surfing is our favorite time waster, according to a joint survey by Salary.com and AOL. A Northeast technology company found that several employees who frequently complained of overwork spent all day on MySpace.com. Businesses argue that their snooping is justified. Not only are they trying to guard trade secrets and intellectual property, but they also must ensure that workers comply with government regulations, such as keeping medical records and credit-card numbers private. And companies are liable for allowing a hostile work environment—say, one filled with porn-filled computer screens—that may lead to lawsuits. "People write very loosely with their e-mails, but they can unintentionally reach thousands, like posters throughout a work site," says Charles Spearman of diversity-management consultants Tucker Spearman & Associates. "In an investigation, that e-mail can be one of the most persuasive pieces of evidence."
Browse through the racks of dresses, skirts, and tops in almost any trendy clothing store in fashion-savvy Argentina, and whether you find something that fits depends on your size. But shops carry few—if any—options for curvaceous women. When you go into a store and find an extra large, you know that it is really the equivalent of a medium or even a small based on American standards. You feel frustrated bemuse you start to think that everybody is like this, and that you are big. But that"s not true. In this beauty-conscious nation, which has the world"s second-highest rate of anorexia, many are partially blarning the country"s clothing industry for offering only tiny sizes of the latest fashions. The result is a dangerous paradox of girls and women adapting to the clothes rather than clothes adapting to them. The Argentine legislature is considering whether to force clothing manufacturers to cover "all the anthropometric measurements of the Argentine woman" up to extra large size. The bill also ad dresses the related problem of so-called "tricky" labeling in which S, M, and L designations vary by brand and are smaller than international standards. The proposal has raised eyebrows in a historically flirtatious society skeptical of government and well known for its obsession with beauty. "Argentina has the world"s highest rates of aesthetic surgery," says Mabel Bello, founder of the Association for the Fight Against Anorexia. "When you axe talking about how preoccupied with beauty our society is, that is the most telling statistic." For experts such statistics spell futility for legal remedies. "These types of laws are not going to cause lasting changes," says Susana Saulquin, a sociologist of fashion. "A better way to address the problem is through public education that emphasizes balanced eating habits over an unrealistic ideal of beauty." Currently, companies try to preserve brand image by catering to young and extremely thin customers, but over time, she believes, a more balanced view of beauty will emerge. For their part, industry groups condemn the bill as overreaching state intervening. They say their business decisions are guided by consumer demand. "We are not in favor of anything that regulates the market," says Laura Codda, a representative of major clothing manufacturers. "Every clothing company has the right to make anything they can sell—any color, any sizes." She says her group is not op posed to measures that would standardize sizing, but she notes that many, if not most, clothes in Argentine stores already carry the numerical designations called for in the hill. If history is a guide, the fate of the proposed law is somewhat bleak. However, in 2005, the provincial government of Buenos Aires managed to pass a similar law—although the governor failed to sign it.
This question is less difficult than that question.
EnergyCrisisWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.
Europe's biggest countries were once among the biggest anywhere. In 1950, four of the world's ten most 【C1】______ states were in western Europe. But decades of falling birth rates have 【C2】______ slow population growth in Europe. By 2017, Europe's most populous country【C3】______ just 16th globally. The continent's birth rate is now so low that the total population in many European countries has begun to 【C4】______. One solution is to attract foreigners. Eurostat said that the region's population rose in 2016【C5】______ immigration. The number of births and deaths were equal at 5.1m, while net migration 【C6】______ the population to 511.8m. In 13 【C7】______ its 28 member countries, more people died than were born last year. 【C8】______ not all saw their populations fall. A large intake of migrants to Germany meant that populations there still 【C9】______ grow. By 2050, Eurostat estimates that only Ireland, France, Norway and Britain would see their populations rise 【C10】______ migration. 【C11】______ , Germany and Italy need migrants badly. 【C12】______migration does continue, Eurostat's central forecast 【C13】______ that Germany will still only maintain its current population. Even 【C14】______ migration at current levels is unlikely to prevent most eastern and Mediterranean countries 【C15】______ shrinking. The former group has been losing people 【C16】______ the break-up of the Soviet Union. 【C17】______ those countries joined the EU, large shares of their populations emigrated to richer EU member countries to work. For those who leave, the freedom to live and work is an immense boon. But the countries 【C18】______ they were raised face a hard task. They must attract and 【C19】______ new workers, increase their birth rates, or learn to 【C20】______ a declining population.
It is because of his plays that Shakespeare is now considered the greatest English writer in history. The era in which he lived, Elizabethan England, was a time in which broad interests and creativity could flourish. Elizabeth, the queen, was beloved by her subjects and proved to be a powerful and able ruler. Under the reign of Elizabeth, England changed from an island kingdom to an expanding empire. England grew rich through trade. Sixteenth-century Englishmen traveled to the New World and to Africa. Music, dance, poetry, painting, and architecture flourished; but the art form in which Elizabethan England distinguished the rest of Europe was the theater. The theater, which had practically disappeared from Europe was, at this time, received as a part of the church service. Later, no longer as a part of the service, the" mystery plays" responded to popular taste by adding more and more comic elements. In England, they were sponsored by various trade guilds and presented on stage wagons that went from place to place. When the mystery plays began to lose their appeal, they were replaced by "morality" plays which always taught a moral. In Renaissance England, writers were particularly interested in classical texts such as Latin and Greek plays. Schools and universities began to produce comedies and tragedies by Platus, Terence, and Seneca. Shakespeare was well acquainted with classical humanities and classical tragedies and comedies often served as models in his own drama. A Renaissance man, Shakespeare"s interest went beyond book learning to practical knowledge of military strategy, seafaring, business affairs, and the new geographical discoveries, all evident in his plays. Companies of strolling plays which had specialized in morality plays responded to the change by staging new plays. Professional actors, who had been viewed by English society as little better than vagrants or criminals, gradually came under the protection of the nobility. Licensed theater companies were formed; Shakespeare belonged to one of those, where in addition to his writing, he acquired a wide experience in acting and theater management. The theater grew in popularity and public theaters were built, not inside the city limits but just outside, along with other places of entertainment. Theaters in Elizabethan England were patronized by all social classes. The Globe Theater, built in 1599, where many of Shakespeare"s plays were performed, had a platform stage jutting out into a central courtyard. The audience stay around three sides of this platform the lower-class who each paid a penny in the pit and the wealthier spectators in the galleries above. The orchestra was on stage, as music was usually a significant part of the production. Indeed, the costumes, scenery, singing, playing, and dancing, as well as acting was essential to the total show. There was no lighting, however, plays were performed in the afternoon. Shakespeare knew his audience: his theater is addressed not just to the educated but to all classes of society.
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) From the seventeenth century Empire of Sweden, the story of a galleon that sank at the start of her maiden voyage in 1628 must be one of the strangest tales of the sea. For nearly three and a half centuries she lay at the bottom of Stockholm harbor until her discovery in 1956. (41)______. (42)______. Triple gun decks mounted sixty four bronze cannon. She was intended to play a leading role in the growing might of Sweden. As she was prepared for her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, Stockholm was in ferment. From the Skeppsbron and surrounding islands the people watched this thing of beauty began to spread her sails and catches the wind. They had la bored for three years to produce this floating work of art; she was more richly carved and ornamented than any previous ship. The high stern castle was a riot of carved gods, demons, knights, kings, warriors, mermaids, cherubs; and zoomorphic animal shapes ablaze with red and gold and blue, symbols of courage, power, and cruelty, were portrayed to stir the imaginations of the superstitious sailors of the day. (43)______. (44)______. As the wind freshened there came a sudden squall and the ship made a strange movement, listing to port. The Ordnance Officer ordered all the port cannon to be heaved to starboard to counteract the list, but the steepening angle of the decks increased. Then the sound of rumbling thunder reached the watchers on the shore, as cargo, ballast, ammunition and 400 people went sliding and crashing down to the port side of the steeply listing ship. (45)______. In that first glorious hour, the mighty Vasa, which was intended to rule the Bal tic, sank with all flags flying—in the harbor of her birth.A. All gun ports were open and the muzzles peeped wickedly from them.B. Vasa sailed majestically out of the bay.C. This was the Vasa, royal flagship of the great imperial fleet.D. King Gustavus Adolphus, "The Northern Hurricane", then at the height of his military success in the Thirty Years" War, had dictated her measurements and armament.E. The lower gun ports were now below water and the inrush sealed the ship"s fate.F. As soon as her discovery, the world became shocker.G. Then the cannons of the anchored warships thundered a salute to which the Vasa fired in reply. As she emerged from her drifting cloud of gun smoke with the water churned to foam beneath her bow, her flags flying, pennants waving, sails filling in the breeze, and the red and gold of her superstructure ablaze with color, she presented a more majestic spectacle than Stockbolmers had ever seen before.
BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B
For years I.O.C. Czar Juan Antonio Samaranch has exhibited a pronounced ambivalence about drug use, and certainly his stance has allowed a number of golden boys and girls to keep their images shiny while doping. Careful athletes can easily beat the system that is in place to catch drug abusers. Unscrupulous sports federations can tailor testing schedules and tip off their constituents. Steroid creams can be flushed from the system in 24 to 48 hours. And for some of the most commonly used enhancers, such as erythropoietin (EPO), there are still no institutionalized teats. It is said that EPO, which increases stamina by boosting an athlete"s red blood cell count, can improve an athlete"s performance in a 20-minmum by 30 sec., but it is otherwise a nightmare of a drug. Overdose on EPO, and the blood becomes too thick for the heart to pump. EPO is believed to be the culprit in no fewer than 25 mysterious deaths among world-class cyclists since 1987. But athletes will take EPO in Sydney because they can, and some of them will take too much of it. In 1995 Olympic—caliber U.S. athletes were asked in a poll, "Would you take a drug that made you a champion, knowing that it would kill you in five years?" more than half said yes. So even if we forget about fair play and credibility and Olympic ideals, we are left with this: the athletes must be protected from themselves arm the pressure to win. How? The I.O.C. needs to do two things immediately: develop a spine, and federalize. The only way to catch a cheat is with unannounced, out-of-competition testing. Historically the I.O.C. has delegated decision making to individual sports federations, but that policy is not working when it comes to drags. A third of the 28 federations have yet to agree to out-of-competition tests in advance of the Sydney Games. The I.O.C. should call an emergency session and make a new rule applying to all sports, then send out its newly empowered testers. As for that imperfect test for EPO-use it anyway. As gold medal marathoner Frank Shorter, now chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, says, knowing a test is looming that will knock cheaters off stride. Shorter says that if there is no EPO test at Sydney, then every endurance or strength performance is suspect. He"s right. And when sport becomes suspect—when no one believes in it—it"s no longer worth watching.
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
My Thought on Environmental Protection