Additional social stresses may also occur because of the population explosion or problems arising from mass migration movements—themselves made relatively easy nowadays by modern means of transport.

BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

In view of several obvious practical considerations, many general deprivation studies have used animals rather than human beings as experimental subjects. Waking effects routinely observed in these studies have been of deteriorated physiological functioning, sometimes including actual tissue damage. Long-term sleep deprivation in the rat(6 to 33 days)has been shown to result in severe debilitation and death of the experimental animals. This supports the view that sleep serves a vital physiological function.【F1】 There is some suggestion that age is related to sensitivity to the effects of deprivation, younger organisms proving more capable of withstanding the stress than mature ones. Among human subjects, the champion non-sleeper apparently was a 17-year-old student who voluntarily undertook a 264-hour sleep deprivation experiment. Effects noted during the deprivation period included irritability, blurred vision, slurring of speech, memory lapses, and confusion concerning his identity. No long-term(i. e. , post-recovery)effects were observed on either his personality or his intellect.【F2】 More generally, although brief hallucinations and easily controlled episodes of bizarre behaviour have been observed after five to 10 days of continuous sleep deprivation, these symptoms do not occur in most subjects and thus offer little support to the hypothesis that sleep loss induces psychosis. In any event, these symptoms rarely persist beyond the period of sleep that follows the period of deprivation. When inappropriate behaviour does persist, it generally seems to be in persons known to have a tendency toward such behaviour. Generally, upon investigation, injury to the nervous system has not been discovered in persons who have been deprived of sleep for many days. This negative result must be understood in the context of the limited duration of these studies and should not be interpreted as indicating that sleep loss is either safe or desirable.【F3】 The short-term effects observed with the student mentioned are typical and are of the sort that, in the absence of the continuous monitoring his vigil received, might well have endangered his health and safety. 【F4】 Other commonly observed behavioral effects during total sleep deprivation include fatigue, inability to concentrate, and visual or tactile illusions and hallucinations. These effects generally become intensified with increased loss of sleep, but they also wax and wane in a cyclic fashion becoming most acute in the early morning hours. Changes in intellectual performance during moderate sleep loss can, to a certain extent, be compensated for by increased effort and motivation.【F5】 Changes in body chemistry and in workings of the autonomic nervous system sometimes have been noted during deprivation, but it has proved difficult to establish either consistent patterning in such effects or whether they should be attributed to sleep loss per se or to the stress or other incidental features of the deprivation manipulation .

What is a woman worth? That is the question that has to be faced by divorcing couples and by their lawyers. The answers seem to be getting curiouser and curiouser. Last week a judge ordered an insurance broker to give his former wife a settlement of ￡48m. She had earlier refused his offer of about ￡20m, which is why the matter went to court. No doubt Beverley Charman was an ex-emplary wife, and it is written in the Book of Proverbs that the price of a virtuous woman is above rubies, but even so, ￡48m seems a little steep. It would buy a couple of continents" worth of rubies. What women are really worth is beset with confusion and contradiction. There was a time when what women wanted was equal pay for equal work One of the logical consequences was that no woman was entitled to take out of a marriage any more than she brought into it. That view was later softened by a recognition that childbearing and childcare present a serious opportunity cost to most women. So now people tend to agree that at divorce a woman should be compensated both for the real value that she brought to the marriage and for the opportunity cost to herself—her long slide down the career ladder, her loss of a personal pension, her reduced chances of finding another spouse. Then there is a surprisingly unliberated tendency among women, and among men, to make estimates that are unfairly biased in favor of women. The judge in the Charmans" hearing said that this was one of the very small category of cases where the wealth created is of extraordinary proportions from extraordinary talent and energy of the husband and therefore the husband could keep more than half the assets. That still left the wife with 48m (37% of the assets). But then the judge made some odd remarks about old-fashioned attitudes. Discussing John Charman"s determination "to protect what he regards as wealth generated entirely by his efforts", he said: "In the narrow, old-fashioned sense, that perspective is understandable, if somewhat outdated." Wrong. It is the judge who sounds old-fashioned. This country is awash with clever and hardworking men who make huge sums of money while their wives do little to contribute to domestic comfort and not much to advance their husband"s careers. That does not mean they are not entitled to proper compensation on divorce, but I think the assumption that they are entitled to half the fruits of the marriage, unless there is good reason why not, is absurd.

In a science-fiction movie called "Species", a mysterious signal from outer space turns out to describe the genome of an unknown organism. When the inevitable mad scientist synthesizes the DNA described by the instructions, the creature he breeds from it turns out to resemble Natasha Henstridge, an athletic actress. Unfortunately, the alien harbors within her delicate form the destructive powers of a Panzer division, and it all ends badly for the rash geneticist and his laboratory. Glen Evans, chief executive of Egea Biosciences in San Diego, California, acknowledges regretfully that despite seeking his expert opinion—in return for which he was presented with the poster of the striking Mr. Henstridge that hangs on his office wall—the producers of "Species" did not hew very closely to his suggestions about the feasibility of their script ideas. Still, they had come to the right man. Dr Evans believes that his firm will soon be able to create, if not an alien succubus, at least a tiny biological machine made of artificial proteins that could mimic the behavior of a living cell. Making such proteins will require the ability to synthesize long stretches of DNA. Existing technology for synthesizing DNA can manage to make genes that encode a few dozen amino acids, but this is too short to produce any interesting proteins. Egea"s technology, by contrast, would allow biologists to manufacture genes wholesale. The firm"s scientists can make genes long enough to encode 6,000 amino acids. They aim to synthesize a gene for 30,000 amino acids within two years. Using a library of the roughly 1,500 possible "motifs" or folds that a protein can adopt, Egea"s scientists employ computers to design new proteins that are likely to have desirable shapes and properties. To synthesize the DNA that encodes these proteins, Egea uses a machine it has dubbed the" As Egea extends the length of DNA it can synthesize, Dr. Evans likens this device to a word processor for DNA, on which you can type in the sequence of letters defining a piece of DNA and get that molecule out. As Egea extends the length of DNA it can synthesize, Dr. Evans envisages encoding not just proteins, but entire biochemical pathways, which are teams of proteins that conduct metabolic processes. A collection of such molecules could conceivably function as a miniature machine that would operate in the body and attack disease, just as the body"s own defensive cells do. Perhaps Dr. Evans and his colleagues ought to get in touch with their friends in Hollywood.

An experiment that some hoped would reveal a new class of subatomic particles, and perhaps even point to clues about why the universe exists at all, has instead produced a first round of results that are mysteriously inconclusive. Dr. Conrad and William C. Louis presented their initial findings in a talk yesterday at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory where the experiment is being performed. The goal was to confirm or refute observations made in the 1990s in a Los Alamos experiment that observed transformations in the evanescent but bountiful particles known as neutrinos(微中子). Neutrinos have no electrical charge and almost no mass, but there are so many of them that they could collectively outweigh all the stars in the universe. The new experiment has attracted wide interest. That reflected in part the hope of finding cracks in the Standard Model, which encapsulates physicists" current knowledge about fundamental particles and forces. The Standard Model has proved remarkably effective and accurate, but it cannot answer some fundamental questions, like why the universe did not completely annihilate(毁灭) itself an instant after the Big Bang. The birth of the universe 13.7 billion years ago created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Since matter and antimatter annihilate each other when they come in contact, that would have left nothing to coalesce into stars and galaxies. There must be some imbalance in the laws of physics that led to a slight preponderance of matter over antimatter, and that extra bit of matter formed everything in the visible universe. The imbalance, some physicists believe, may be hiding in the dynamics of neutrinos. Neutrinos come in three known types, or flavors. And they can change flavor as they travel. But the neutrino transformations reported in the Los Alamos data do not fit the three-flavor model, suggesting four flavors of neutrinos, if not more. The new experiment sought to count the number of times one flavor of neutrino, called a muon(μ介子), turned into another flavor, an electron neutrino. For most of the neutrino energy range they looked at, the scientists did not see any more electron neutrinos than would be predicted by the Standard Model. That ruled out the simplest ways of interpreting the Los Alamos neutrino data, Dr. Conrad and Dr. Louis said. But at the lower energies, the scientists did see more electron neutrinos than predicted: 369, rather than the predicted 273. That may simply mean that some calculations are off. Or it could point to a subtler interplay of particles, known and unknown. Dr. Louis said he was surprised by the results". I was sort of expecting a clear excess or no excess", he said. "In a sense, we got both".

If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work-force skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. Labor is simply another factor of production to be hired—rented at the lowest possible cost—much as one buys raw materials or equipment. The lack of importance attached to human-resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of head of human resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central—usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm"s hierarchy. While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work forces, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional and managerial employees. And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies. As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological change. And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can"t effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.

BPart B/B

Title: READING BOOKSWord limit: 160-200 wordsTime limit: 40 minutesYou are required to develop your essay according to the given topic sentence of each paragraph.1. Reading books gives us knowledge.2. Books are our friends.3. Books are our teachers.

Of all the goods and services traded in the market economy, pharmaceuticals are perhaps the most contentious. Though produced by private companies, they constitute a public good, both because they can prevent epidemics and because healthy people function better as members of society than sick ones do. They carry a moral weight that most privately traded goods do not, for there is a widespread belief that people have a right to health care. Innovation accounts for most of the cost of production, so the price of drugs is much higher than their cost of manufacture, making them unaffordable to many poor people. Firms protect the intellectual property (IP) that drugs represent and sue those who try to manufacture and sell patented drugs cheaply. For all these reasons, pharmaceutical companies are widely regarded as vampires who exploit the sick and ignore the sufferings of the poor. These criticisms reached a summit more than a decade ago at the peak of the HIV plague. When South Africa's government sought to legalise the import of cheap generic copies of patented AIDS drugs, pharmaceutical companies took it to court. The case earned the nickname "Big Pharma v Nelson Mandela". It was a low point for the industry, which wisely backed down. Now arguments over drugs pricing are rising again. Activists are suing to block the patenting in India of a new Hepatitis C drug that has just been approved by American regulators. Other clashes are breaking out, in countries from Brazil to Britain. But the main battlefield is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed trade deal between countries in Asia and the Americas. The parties have yet to reach an agreement, partly because of the drug-pricing question. Under the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, a deal signed in 1994, governments can allow a generic drugmaker to produce a patented medicine. America—home of most of the world's big pharma, whose consumers pay the world's highest prices for drugs—wants to use the TPP to restrict such compulsory licences to infectious diseases, while emerging-market countries want to make it harder for drug firms to win patents. The reoccurrence of conflict over drug pricing is the result not of a sudden emergency, but of broad, long-term changes. Rich countries want to slash health costs. In emerging markets, people are living longer and getting rich-country diseases. This is boosting demand for drugs for cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases. In emerging markets, governments want to expand access to treatment, but drugs already account for a large share of health-care spending. Meanwhile, a wave of innovation is producing expensive new treatments.

Over the past decade, thousands of patents have been granted for what are called business methods. Amazon.com received one for its "one-click" online payment system. Merrill Lynch got legal protection for an asset allocation strategy. One inventor patented a technique for lifting a box. Now the nation' s top patent court appears completely ready to scale back on business-method patents, which have been controversial ever since they were first authorized 10 years ago. In a move that has intellectual-property lawyers abuzz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it would use a particular case to conduct a broad review of business-method patents. In re Bilski, as the case is known, is "a very big deal," says Dennis D. Crouch of the University of Missouri School of law. It "has the potential to eliminate an entire class of patents." Curbs on business-method claims would be a dramatic about-face , because it was the Federal Circuit itself that introduced such patents with its 1998 decision in the so-called State Street Bank case, approving a patent on a way of pooling mutual-fund assets. That ruling produced an explosion in business-method patent filings, initially by emerging internet companies trying to stake out exclusive rights to specific types of online transactions. Later, move established companies raced to add such patents to their files, if only as a defensive move against rivals that might beat them to the punch. In 2005, IBM noted in a court filing that it had been issued more than 300 business-method patents, despite the fact that it questioned the legal basis for granting them. Similarly, some Wall Street investment films armed themselves with patents for financial products, even as they took positions in court cases opposing the practice. The Bilski case involves a claimed patent on a method for hedging risk in the energy market. The Federal Circuit issued an unusual order stating that the case would be heard by all 12 of the court' s judges, rather than a typical panel of three, and that one issue it wants to evaluate is whether it should "reconsider" its State Street Bank ruling. The Federal Circuit' s action comes in the wake of a series of recent decisions by the supreme Court that has narrowed the scope of protections for patent holders. Last April, for example, the justices signaled that too many patents were being upheld for "inventions" that are obvious. The judges on the Federal Circuit are "reacting to the anti-patent trend at the Supreme Court," says Harold C. Wegner, a patent attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.

Most of the questions have been settled satisfactorily, and only a few questions of secondary importance remain to be discussed.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41—45, choose the most suitable one from the list A—G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) (41)______. Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a book which provides meaning for me, a doctor who will judge my diet for me and so on, then I do not need to exert myself. I do not have any need to think; if I can pay, others will take over the tedious job for me. The guardians who have kindly undertaken the supervision will see to it that by far the largest part of mankind, including the entire "beautiful sex", should consider the step into maturity, not only as difficult but as very dangerous. (42)______. It is difficult for the isolated individual to work himself out of the immaturity which has become almost natural for him. He has even become fond of it and for the time being is incapable of employing his own intelligence, because he has never been allowed to make the attempt. Statues and formulas, these mechanical tools of a serviceable use, or rather misuse, of his natural faculties, are the ankle-chains of a continuous immaturity. Whoever threw it off would make an uncertain jump over the smallest trench because he is not accustomed to such free movement. Therefore there are only a few who have pursued a firm path and have succeeded in escaping from immaturity by their own cultivation of the mind. But it is more nearly possible for a public to enlighten itself: this is even inescapable if only the public is given its freedom. For there will always be some people who think for themselves, even among, the self-appointed guardians of the great mass who, after having thrown off the yoke of immaturity themselves, will spread about them the spirit of a reasonable estimate of their own value and of the need for every man to think for himself. (43)______. Through revolution, the abandonment of personal despotism may be engendered and the end of profit-seeking and domineering oppression may occur, but never a true reform of the state of mind. Instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones, will serve as the guiding reins of the great, unthinking mass. (44)______. But I hear people clamor on all sides: Don"t argue! The officer says: Don"t argue, drill! The tax collector: Don"t argue, pay! The pastor: Don"t argue, believe! Here we have restrictions on freedom everywhere. Which restriction is hampering enlightenment, and which does not, or even promotes it? I answer; The public use of a man"s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men. The question may now be put: Do we live at present in an enlightened age? (45)______.A. All that is required for this enlightenment is freedom; and particularly the least harmful of that may be called freedom, namely, the freedom for man to make public use of his reason in all matters.B. Enlightenment is man"s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one"s intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one"s intelligence without being guided by another. Have the courage to use your own intelligence! It is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.C. The answer is: No, but in an age of enlightenment. Much still prevents men from being placed in a position to use their own minds securely and well in matters of religion. But we do have very definite indications that this field of endeavor is being opened up for men to work freely and reduce gradually the hindrances preventing a general enlightenment and an escape from self-caused immaturity.D. I call this soaring wealth and shrinking spirit "the American paradox". More than ever, we have big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We excel at making a living but often fail at making a life. We celebrate our prosperity but yearn for purpose. We celebrate our freedoms but long for connection. In an age of plenty, we feel spiritual hunger.E. A public can only arrive at enlightenment slowly.F. After having made their domestic animals dumb and having carefully prevented these quiet creatures from daring to take any step beyond the lead-strings to which they have fastened them, these guardians then show them the danger which threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not really so very great; for they would presumably learn to walk after some stumbling. However, an example of this kind intimidates and frightens people out of all further attempts.G. Attitudes about divorce have dramatically changed. In the past, it was seen as the last resort of a woman who had been beaten up or cheated on. Women were victims. Today many women choose to get divorced because they think they will have a better life as a SINDI than by staying in a stale marriage. In 74 percent of eases it is women who now instigate divorce proceedings.

The title of the biography The American Civil War Fighting for the Lady could hardly be more provocative. Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer, is unapologetic. In labeling a hero of the American civil war a notorious scoundrel he switches the spotlight from the brave actions of Dan Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg to his earlier pre-meditated murder, of the lover of his young and pretty Italian-American wife, Teresa. It is not the murder itself that disgusts Mr. Keneally but Sickles"s treatment of his wife afterwards, and how his behavior mirrored the hypocritical misogyny of 19th-century America. The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles"s lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country"s national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key"s murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House. Mrs. Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included Queen IsabellaⅡ of Spain and the madam of an industrialized New York whorehouse, refused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles"s daughter, was an innocent victim of her father"s vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York. Sickles"s bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move. Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.

Despite their many differences of temperament and of literary perspective, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman share certain beliefs. Common to all these writers is their humanistic perspective. Its basic premises are that humans are the spiritual center of the universe and that in them alone is the clue to nature, history, and ultimately the cosmos itself. Without completely denying the existence either of a deity(the God) or of irrational matter, this perspective nevertheless rejects them as exclusive principles of interpretation and prefers to explain humans and the world in terms of humanity itself. This preference is expressed most clearly in the Transcendentalist principle that the structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self; therefore, all knowledge begins with self-knowledge. This common perspective is almost always universalized. Its emphasis is not upon the individual as a particular European or American, but upon the human as universal, freed from the accidents of time, space, birth, and talent. Thus, for Emerson, the "American Scholar" turns out to be simply "Man Thinking"; while, for Whitman, the "Song of Myself" merges imperceptibly into a song of all the "children of Adam", where "every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you". Also common to all five writers is the belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization, which, in turn, depends upon the harmonious reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies., first, the self-asserting impulse of the individual to withdraw, to remain unique and separate, and to be responsible only to himself or herself and second, the self-transcending impulse of the individual to embrace the whole world in the experience of a single moment and to know and become one with that world. These conflicting impulses can be seen in the democratic ethic. Democracy advocates individualism, the preservation of the individual"s freedom and self-expression. But the democratic self is torn between the duty to self, which is implied by the concept of liberty, and the duty to society, which is implied by the concepts of equality and fraternity. A third assumption common to the five writers is that intuition and imagination offer a surer road to truth than does abstract logic or scientific method. It is illustrated by their emphasis upon introspection—their belief that the clue to external nature is to be found in the inner world of individual psychology—and by their interpretation of experience as, in essence, symbolic. Both these stresses presume an organic relationship between the self and the cosmos, of which only intuition and imagination can properly take account. These writers" faith in the imagination and in themselves as practitioners of imagination led them to conceive of the writer as a seer and enabled them to achieve supreme confidence in their own moral and metaphysical insights.Notes: Transcendentalist先验论的。self-transcending;超越自我的。ethic伦理标准，道德规范。be torn between,在....之间左右为难。fraternity博爱。introspection 反省。seer预言家,先知。metaphysical形而上学的

That orientals and occidentals think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades【C1】______Westerners have a more individualistic, analytic and abstract【C2】______life than do East Asians. Several hypotheses have been put forward to【C3】______this. One, that modernization promotes individualism, falls at the first obstacle: Japan, an ultra-modem country whose people have【C4】______a collective outlook. A second, that a higher prevalence of【C5】______disease in a place makes contact with【C6】______more dangerous, and causes groups to turn inward, is hardly better. Europe has had its【C7】______of plagues; probably more than either Japan or Korea. That【C8】______Thomas Talhelm of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to【C9】______into a third suggestion: that the crucial difference is【C10】______The West's staple is wheat; the East's, rice.【C11】______the mechanization of agriculture a farmer who grew rice had to【C12】______twice as many hours doing so as one who grew wheat To allocate labor【C13】______, especially at times of planting and【C14】______, rice-growing societies as far【C15】______as India, Malaysia and Japan all developed【C16】______labor exchanges which let【C17】______rearrange their farms' schedules in order to assist each other during these crucial periods.【C18】______until recently, almost everyone alive was a farmer, it is a reasonable hypothesis that such a collective outlook would【C19】______a society's culture and behavior, and might prove so deep-rooted that even now, when most people earn their living in other ways, it helps to【C20】______their lives.

Potential AIDS victims who refuse to be tested for the disease and then defend their right to remain ignorant about whether they carry the virus are entitled to that fight. But ignorance cannot be used to rationalize irresponsibility. Nowhere in their argument is their concern about how such ignorance might endanger public health by exposing others to the virus. All disease is an outrage, and disease that affects the young and healthy seems particularly outrageous. When a disease selectively attacks the socially disadvantaged, such as homosexuals and drug abusers, it seems an injustice beyond rationalization. Such is the case with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Decent people are offended by this unfairness and in the name of benevolence have been driven to do morally irresponsible things such as denying the unpleasant facts of the disease, out of compassion for the victims. We cannot distort the facts to comfort the afflicted when such confusion compounds the tragedy. Some crucial facts: AIDS is a communicable disease. The percentage of those infected with the AIDS virus who will eventually contract the disease is unknown, but that percentage rises with each new estimate. The disease so far has been 100 potential. The latency period between the time the virus is acquired and the disease develops is also unknown. We now have teats for the presence of the virus that is as efficient and reliable as almost any diagnostic test in medicine. An individual who tests positive can be presumed with near-certainty to carry the virus, whether he has the disease or not. To state that the test for AIDS is "ambiguous", as a clergyman recently in public, is a misstatement and an immoral act. To state that the test does not directly indicate the presence of the virus is a half-truth that misleads and an immoral act. The test correlates so consistently with the presence of the virus in bacteria cultures as to be considered I00 percent certain by experts. Everyone who tests positive must understand that he is a potential vector for the AIDS virus and has a moral duty and responsibility to prevent others from contamination. We are not just dealing with the protection of the innocent but with an essential step to contain the spread of an epidemic as horrible as any that has befallen modern man. We must do everything in our power to keep this still, untreatable disease from becoming pandemic. It may seem unfair to burden the tragic victims with concern for the welfare of others. But moral responsibility is not a luxury of the fortunate, and evil actions committed in despair cannot be condemned out of pity. It is morally wrong for a healthy individual who tests positive for AIDS to be involved with anyone except under the strict precautions now defined as safe sex. It is morally wrong for someone in a high-risk population who refuses to test himself to do other than to assume that he tests positive. It is morally wrong for those who, out of sympathy for the heartbreaking victims of this epidemic, as though well wishing and platitudes(老生常谈) about the ambiguities of the disease are necessary in order to comfort the victims while "they contribute to enlarging the number of those victims. Moral responsibility is the burden of the sick as well as the healthy.

The world's oldest word-processing and graphics system has no memory and no spell checker. It needs constant maintenance and cannot be upgraded; it could not be more analog and less compatible. And folks keep using it. 【F1】 For over four centuries, the classic wooden pencil has defied out-of-datedness—a feat that generations of laptops and palm devices cannot match. 【F2】 Even in the outcome of the great technology failure, worldwide output of basic black-lead pencils has continued to grow and now reaches an estimated 15 billion a year. Manfred-Meller, director of the European Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, based in Nuremberg, said, 【F3】 "We always are asked how the pencil justifies itself when there are such fashionable products like digital pens and palms." The reasons may seem obvious enough. The world's most-used writing implement happens to be the least expensive. It never crashes or dries out. It works in outer space, underwater and everywhere in between. Technical support consists of a sharpener. But to pencil enthusiasts, such realism misses the point. There is something so organic about the pencil that John Steinbeck, Guenter Grass and Archibald MacLeish have recited about writing longhand with an expressive instrument that intuitively prints bold strokes and light shades. 【F4】 In fact, the plain yellow No. 2 pencil has become a rallying point for an anti-technology movement by a growing number of device-weary writers, thinkers, architects and musicians. 【F5】 "Leadites unite!" urges the declaration of the Lead Pencil Club, a group that has turned its collective back on a computer-crazed world that they complain has degraded the written word and replaced too many sensory experiences with virtual-reality substitutes. "It is simple," said the club's founder, Bill Henderson, when asked about the passion for standard lead pencils. "You do not need electricity, it is cheap and when you write in your own handwriting, it becomes a mark of who you are, unlike a computer, which reduces us all to a couple of letterforms. It travels everywhere. And it is not in a big fat hurry all the time. " "I preferred to reach for the pencil, which surrenders its strikes more readily," Goethe wrote in his writing "Poetry and Truth." "I do not write with a pencil," the Canadian author Farley Mowat wrote in his membership letter to the Lead Pencil Club. "I chew them. I eat them."

Now some of the students pay more attention to job-hunting than to their academic work, according to this fact, write an essay to 1) analyse this phenomenon, 2) express your opinion, and 3) suggest counter-measures. You should write about 160—200 words neatly.

You are going to read a text about the principles for teaching extensive reading, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list for each numbered subheading. There is one extra example which you do not need to use. We offer here some principles for teaching extensive reading as a tool for professional development. These are what we believe the basic ingredients of extensive reading. We encourage teachers to use them as a way to examine their beliefs about reading in general and extensive reading in particular, and the ways they teach foreign language reading. We posit these principles in the hopes that others will consider them and react to them. (41) The reading material is easy. This clearly separates extensive reading from other approaches to teaching foreign language reading. For extensive reading to be possible and for it to have the desired results, texts must be well within the learners" reading competence in the foreign language. (42) A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available. The success of extensive reading depends largely on enticing students to read. To awaken or en courage a desire to read, the texts made available should ideally be as varied as the learners who read them and the purposes for which they want to read. (43) Learners choose what they want to read. The principle of freedom of choice means that learners can select texts as they do in their own language, that is, they can choose texts they expect to understand, to enjoy or to learn from. Correlative to this principle, learners are also free, indeed encouraged, to stop reading anything they find to be too difficult, or that turns out not to be of interest. (44) Learners read as much as possible. This is the "extensive" of extensive reading, made possible by the previous principles. The most critical element in learning to read is the amount of time spent actually reading.The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding. In an extensive reading approach, learners are encouraged to read for the same kinds of reasons and in the same ways as the general population of first-language readers. This sets extensive reading apart from usual classroom practice on the one hand, and reading for academic purposes on the other. One hundred percent comprehension, indeed, any particular objective level of comprehension, is not a goal. In terms of reading outcomes, the focus shifts away from comprehension achieved or knowledge gained and towards the reader"s personal experience. (45) Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower. When learners are reading material that is well within their linguistic ability, for personal interest, and for general rather than academic purposes, it is an incentive to reading fluency. We hope that these principles will give teachers food for thought and reflection as they consider their beliefs about how best to help their students become proficient foreign-language readers.A. The learners" experience of reading the text is at the center of the extensive reading experience, just as it is in reading in everyday life. For this reason, extensive reading is not usually followed by comprehension questions. It is an experience complete in itself. At the same time, teachers may ask students to complete follow-up activities based on their reading. Such activities, while respecting the integrity of students" reading experiences, extend them in interesting and useful ways.B. Books, magazines, newspapers, fiction, non-fiction, texts that inform, texts that entertain, general, specialized, light, serious.C. In helping beginning readers select texts that are well within their reading comfort zone, more than one or two unknown words per page might make the text too difficult for overall understanding. Intermediate learners might use the rule of hand—no more than five difficult words per page.D. Nuttall notes that "speed, enjoyment and comprehension are closely linked with one another". She describes "The vicious circle of the weak reader: Reads slowly; Doesn"t enjoy reading; Doesn"t read much; Doesn"t understand; Reads slowly..." and so on. Extensive reading can help readers "enter instead the cycle of growth...The virtuous circle of the good reader: Reads faster; Reads more; Understands better; Enjoys reading; Reads faster..."E. There is no upper limit to the amount of reading that can be done, but a book a week is probably the minimum amount of reading necessary to achieve the benefits of extensive reading and to establish a reading habit.F. What Henry noticed about her kevel-1 non-reading undergraduates is no less true in foreign language reading: "My students needed to read for themselves, not for me." For students used to working with textbooks and teacher-selected texts, the freedom to choose reading material and freedom to stop reading may be a crucial step in experiencing foreign language reading as something personal.