"Of the people, by the people, and for the people." That's how Abraham Lincoln described the American government in his Gettysburg Address. These simple phrases capture the essence of American democracy. Instead of ruling over U. S. citizens, the government is ruled by them.【C1】______ . Each American citizen has a vested interest in how he or she is governed. Former President Theodore Roosevelt expressed the American view of government well: "The government is us." At first glance, it might seem that the U.S. president, as "leader of the free world," is the "ruler" of America.【C2】______ . Even as far back as George Washington, who once rejected a suggestion to become "King of America," people have sought to ascribe far-reaching powers to the president. But the Constitution ensures that the president will not become an all-powerful ruler. The U. S. government, as outlined by the Constitution, is divided into three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. The legislative branch passes the laws, the executive enforces the laws and the judicial interprets the laws. The legislative branch is comprised of the two houses of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Thanks to CNN, C/SPAN and the nightly news, many lawmakers have almost become celebrities in their own right.【C3】______. Besides that, as commander in chief of the armed forces, the president carries more than a little clout in world affairs. The judicial branch is made up of the Supreme Court and about 100 other federal courts. The nine Supreme Court justices hold office for life. In order to prevent any one branch of government from becoming more powerful than the other two, the Constitution has established a system of "checks and balances." For instance, when Congress passes a bill, it must have the signature of the president in order to become law. But even if the president rejects the bill, Congress can override his veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House and the Senate. The Supreme Court, as final arbiter of the Constitution, can overturn legislative acts or executive orders if it finds them to be unconstitutional. In this way, the powers of government are balanced, or held in check. 【C4】______. The English political theorist Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." The American government, like every government, has its share of thorny problems. An increasing number of governmental agencies and government workers has created the problem of bureaucracy, where a mountain of paperwork stifles efficiency.【C5】______.[A] The presidency has formal powers deriving from the Constitution, acts of Congress, and judicial opinions interpreting them. Thus the Constitution charges presidents with nominating federal judges and members of their administrations, an act of Congress directs them to submit annual budget requests, and judicial decisions have directed presidents to spend money appropriated by Congress. [B] Elected officials are known as public servants who represent their constituents. Americans can get involved in government by voting, by writing letters to their representatives and even by organizing peaceful demonstrations to make their voices heard. [C] In many countries, power rests with a strong centralized government. In contrast, under the American federal system, the national government shares its power with the state governments. The federal government possesses only those powers clearly delineated in the Constitution; all remaining powers are reserved for the states. [D] On Inauguration Day, the swearing of President Bill Clinton for his second term will reflect the pomp and circumstance of a coronation ceremony, with dignitaries from around the world in attendance. [E] Today questions about the relations between the national government and the states have again become a hot issue for Americans. This debate was one of the central themes of the 1994 congressional and the 1996 presidential elections. [F] Lobbyists make appeals to Congress on behalf of special interest groups. As a result, those with the biggest lobby—and the most money—tend to have the loudest voice in Washington. [G] The executive branch is represented by the president, who is called the chief executive or chief of state.

As long as people have looked up at the night sky, they have wondered whether humanity is alone in the universe. of places close enough for people to visit, Mars is the only one that anybody seriously thinks might support life. The recent confirmation of a five-year-old finding that there is methane (a colorless gas with no smell) in the Martian atmosphere has therefore excitedthe hopes of those scientists who study the outer space. These sources are probably geological but they might, just, prove to be biological. The possibility of life on Mars is too thrilling for mankind to ignore. But how should we explore such questions—with men, or machines? George Bush"s adniinistration strongly supported manned exploration, but the new administration is likely to have different priorities—and so it should. Michael Griffin, the boss of NASA, a physicist and aerospace engineer who supported Mr. Bush"s plan to return to the moon and then push on to Mars, has gone. Mr.Obama"s transition team had already been asking difficult questions of NASA, in particular about the cost of scrapping parts of the successor to the ageing and old-fashioned space shuttles that now form America"s manned space program. That successor system is also designed to return humans to the moon by 2020, as a stepping stone to visiting Mars. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama"s administration is wondering about spending more money on lots of new satellites designed to look down at the Earth, rather than outward into space. These are sensible priorities. In space travel, as in politics, domestic policy should usually by far outweigh foreign adventures. Moreover, cash is short and space travel costly. Yet it would be a shame if man were to give up exploring celestial bodies, especially if there is a possibility of meeting life forms—even ones as lowly as microbes—as a result. Luckily, technology means that man can explore both the moon and Mars more fully without going there himself. Robots are better and cheaper than they have ever been. They can work tirelessly for years, beaming back data and images, and returning samples to Earth. They can also be made germless, which germ-infected humans, who risk spreading disease around the solar system, cannot. Humanity, some will argue, is driven by a yearning to boldly go to places far beyond its crowded corner of the universe. If so, private efforts will surely carry people into space. In the meantime, Mr. Obama"s promise in his inauguration speech to "restore science to its rightful place" sounds like good news for the sort of curiosity-driven research that will allow us to find out whether those columns of methane are signs of life.

The Supreme Court's decisions on physician-assisted suicide carry important implications for how medicine seeks to relieve dying patients of pain and suffering. Although it ruled that there is no constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, the Court in effect supported the medical principle of "double effect," a centuries-old moral principle holding that an action having two effects—a good one that is intended and a harmful one that is foreseen—is permissible if the actor intends only the good effect. Doctors have used that principle in recent years to justify using high doses of morphine to control terminally ill patients' pain, even though increasing dosages will eventually kill the patient. Nancy Dubler, director of Montefiore Medical Center, contends that the principle will shield doctors who "until now have very, very strongly insisted that they could not give patients sufficient mediation to control their pain if that might hasten death." George Annas, chair of the health law department at Boston University, maintains that, as long as a doctor prescribes a drug for a legitimate medical purpose, the doctor has done nothing illegal even if the patient uses the drug to hasten death. "It's like surgery," he says. "We don't call those deaths homicides because the doctors didn't intend to kill their patients, although they risked their death. If you're a physician, you can risk your patient's suicide as long as you don't intend their suicide." On another level, many in the medical community acknowledge that the assisted-suicide debate has been fueled in part by the despair of patients for whom modern medicine has prolonged the physical agony of dying. Just three weeks before the Court's ruling on physician-assisted suicide, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a two-volume report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life. It identifies the undertreatment of pain and the aggressive use of "ineffectual and forced medical procedures that may prolong and even dishonor the period of dying" as the twin problems of end-of-life care. The profession is taking steps to require young doctors to train in hospices, to test knowledge of aggressive pain management therapies, to develop a Medicare billing code for hospital-based care, and to develop new standards for assessing and treating pain at the end of life. Annas says lawyers can play a key role in insisting that these well-meaning medical initiatives translate into better care. "Large numbers of physicians seem unconcerned with the pain their patients are needlessly and predictably suffering," to the extent that it constitutes "systematic patient abuse." He says medical licensing boards "must make it clear...that painful deaths are presumptively ones that are incompetently managed and should result in license suspension."

Science Fiction can provide students interested in the future with a basic introduction to the concept of thinking about possible futures in a serious way, a sense of the emotional forces in their own culture that are affecting the shape the future may take, and a multitude of predictions regarding the results of present trends. Although SF seems to take as its future social settings nothing more ambiguous than the current status quo or its totally evil variant, SF is actually a more important vehicle for speculative visions about macroscopic social change. At this level, it is hard to deal with any precision as to when general value changes or evolving social institutions might appear, but it is most important to think about the kinds of societies that could result from the rise of new forms of interaction, even if one cannot predict exactly when they might occur. In performing this "what if…" function, SF can act as a social laboratory as authors ruminate upon the forms social relationships could take if key variables in their own societies were different, and upon what new belief systems or mythologies could arise in the future to provide the basic rationalizations for human activities. If it is true that most people find it difficult to conceive of the ways in which their society, or human nature itself, could undergo fundamental changes, then SF of this type may provoke one"s imagination—to consider the diversity of paths potentially open to society. Moreover, if SF is the laboratory of the imagination, its experiments are often of the kind that may significantly alter the subject matter even as they are being carried out. That is, SF has always had a certain cybernetic effect on society, as its visions emotionally engage the future—consciousness of the mass public regarding especially desirable and undesirable possibilities. The shape a society takes in the present is in part influenced by its image of the future; in this way particularly powerful SF images may become self-fulfilling or self-avoiding prophecies for society. For that matter, some individuals in recent years have even shaped their own life styles after appealing models provided by SF stories. The reincarnation and diffusion of SF futuristic images of alternative societies through the media of movies and television may have speeded up and augmented SF"s social feedback effects. Thus SF is not only change speculator but change agent, send an echo from the future that is becoming into the present that is sculpting it. This fact alone makes imperative in any education system the study of the kinds of works discussed in this section.

That is, as far as I know, not what he really wants.

"Forests are the lungs of our land," said Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Twenty years ago, the world's lungs were diseased. Roughly half of all the planet's once-luxuriant tropical forests had been felled and the further deterioration of the Earth's green spaces seemed【C1】______. Over time countries【C2】______a "forest transition curve". They start in【C3】______with the land covered in trees. As they get richer, they fell the forest and the curve drops sharply until it reaches a low point when people decide to【C4】______whatever they have left Then the curve rises as reforestation【C5】______. At almost every point along the【C6】______, countries are now doing better defor-esters are【C7】______down less; reforesters are【C8】______more. This matters to everyone because of the extraordinary【C9】______that tropical forests make to reducing carbon emissions. Trees are carbon【C10】______. If you fell and burn them, you【C11】______carbon into the atmosphere. If you let them【C12】______they store carbon away in their trunks for centuries. Despite decades of【C13】______, tropical forests are still【C14】______about a fifth of emissions from fossil fuels each year. Encouraging countries to plant trees(or【C15】______them from logging)is by far the most【C16】______way of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.【C17】______Brazil had kept on felling trees as rapidly as it was cutting them【C18】______in 2005, it would, by 2013, have put an extra 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a way of【C19】______the environment, protecting trees is hard to beat. It is in everyone's interest to find out which forest policies work—and【C20】______them.

Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real. The official statistics are mildly discouraging. They show that, if you lump manufacturing and services together, productivity has grown on average by 1.2% since 1987. That is somewhat faster than the average during the previous decade. And since 1991, productivity has in creased by about 2% a year, which are more than twice the 1978-1987 averages. The trouble is that part of the recent acceleration is due to the usual rebound that occurs at the point in a business cycle, and so is not conclusive evidence of a revival in the underlying trend. There is, as Robert Rubin, the treasury secretary, says, a "disjunction" between the mass of business anecdote that points to a leap in productivity and the picture reflected by the statistics. Some of this can be easily explained. New ways of organizing the workplace all that reengineering and downsizing—are only one contribution to the overall productivity of an economy, Which is driven by many other factors such as joint investment in equipment and machinery, new technology, and investment in education and training. Moreover, most of the changes that companies make are intended to keep them profitable, and this need not always mean increasing productivity: switching to new markets or improving quality can matter just as much. Two other explanations are more speculative. First, some of the business restructuring of recent years may have been ineptly done. Second, even if it wag well done, it may have spread much less widely than people suppose. Leonard Schlesinger, a Harvard academic and former chief executive of Au Bong Pain, a rapidly growing chain of bakery cafes, says that much "reengineering" has been crude. In many cases, he believes, the loss of revenue has been greater than the reductions in cost. His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied reengineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability. B.B.D.O."s A1 Rosen shine is blunter. He dismisses a lot of the work of re engineering consultants as mere rubbish—"the worst sort of ambulance cashing."

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

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee vented their fury over high gasoline prices at executives of the nation"s five largest oil companies on Wednesday, grilling the oilmen over their multimillion-dollar pay packages and warning them that Congress was intent on taking action that could include a new tax on so-called windfall profits. Such showdowns between lawmakers and oil titans have become a familiar routine on Capitol Hill. But with gas prices nearing $ 4 a gallon, and lawmakers headed home for a weeklong Memorial Day recess where they expect to get an earful from angry constituents, there is added urgency for Congress to appear active. But while momentum is building for several measures, including a bill that would allow the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to be sued in American courts under antitrust laws, there is little sign that any of the proposals would do much, if anything, to lower prices quickly. And the oil executives warned that government intervention might only make things worse. Instead, they called on Congress to allow more drilling and exploration for domestic oil. The increasing urgency to seem aggressive about gasoline prices was apparent on Tuesday when the House voted by an overwhelming 324 to 84 to approve the bill, commonly referred to as NOPEC, which classifies OPEC as a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Senate Democrats have included that measure as part of a package of legislation intended to address the high price of gasoline, along with the tax on windfall profits and a measure to tamp down speculation in the oil futures market that many lawmakers think is contributing to the run-up in prices. At the Judiciary Committee hearing, Democratic senators struggled to have the executives explain how oil prices had risen so high. The senators expressed doubt that basic laws of supply and demand were at work and suggested instead a more sinister combination of monopolistic behavior by oil-producing countries, speculation in the futures markets and sheer corporate greed. On Monday, President Bush signed a bill temporarily suspending the purchase of crude oil for the nation"s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Mr. Bush had initially opposed such action but relented after the House and Senate approved the bill by wide margins. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and a strong supporter of Senator Baraek Obama"s presidential bid, made a particularly pointed attack, in which he seemed to warn the oil executives that they would soon no longer have such a good friend in the White House. He also suggested that Mr. Bush should be doing more to press the oil companies to help lower prices at the pump, while acknowledging that it would be difficult to pass a windfall profits tax while Mr. Bush was still in office.

As thick-skinned elected officials go, FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter is right up there with Bill Clinton. The chief of the Zurich based group that oversees World Cup soccer hasn"t been accused of groping any interns, but that"s about all he hasn"t been accused of. Vote buying, mismanagement, cronyism—and that"s just for starters. Yet the 66-year-old Swiss shows no sign of abandoning his campaign for a second four-year term. Blatter, a geek of dispensing FIFA"S hundreds of million in annual revenue to inspire loyalty, even stands a good chance of reelection. At least he did. Since mid-March, he has seen a credible challenger emerge in Issa Hayatou, president of the African Football Confederation. Hayatou, a 55-year-old from Cameroon, leads a group of FIFA reformers that also includes FIFA Vice-President Lennart Johansson, a Swede who lost the presidential election to Blatter in 1998. These contenders" mission: to end what they call the culture of secrecy and lack of accountability that threatens FIFA with financial disaster. Representatives of the world"s 204 national soccer associations meet in Seoul on May 29, and the rebels are given a chance of unseating Blatter. But even they concede that the FIFA honcho won"t be easy to dislodge. Blatter"s staying power seems incredible, given the array of misdeeds attributed to him and his circle. However, there are signs that FIFA"S troubles are bigger than Blatter is saying. The insurgents have already won one victory: They persuaded the rest of the executive board to order an audit of FIFA finances. But Blatter who claims, through a spokesman, that the accusations are a smear campaign-should not be underestimated. At least publicly, sponsors and member associations remain remarkably silent with the controversy. For example, there is no outward sign of outrage from German sports equipment maker Adidas-Salomon, which is spending much of its $625 million marketing budget on the World Cup. "We don"t expect current developments within FIFA to have a negative impact on our expectations" for the World Cup, says Michael Riehl, Adidas head of global sports marketing. The conventional wisdom is that fans don"t care about FIFA politics. Says Bernd Schiphorst, president of Hertha BSC Berlin, a top ranked German team: "I"ve no fear that all these discussions are going to touch the event". Still, the Olympic bribery scandals and the doping affair in the Tour de France show that sleazy dealings can stain the most venerable athletic spectacle. "For the Good of the Game" is FIFA"S official motto. The next few months should show whether it rings true.

Write a letter to your friend Jimmy to advise him not to overstudy himself. Your should include the details you think necessary. You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address. (10 points)

You are going to read a text of tips on interview, followed by a list of explanations (or examples). Choose the best explanation/example from the list each numbered subheading. Attire, body language and manners count during interviews. After all, interviewers are regular people like the rest of us, easily impressed by good behavior and just as easily offended by inappropriate behavior. Yet, surveys show that job candidates" interview manners and other professionalisms are on the decline. On the next pages are tips for acting professionally before, during and after interviews, to avoid offending interviewers and increase your chances of landing a job. (For more interview tips and other job-searching help, click on the links in the sidebar, under Related Resources.) These interview tips are based on good manners in the United States. Good manners are appreciated everywhere, but what constitutes them may differ among other countries. (41) Do your homework: Research the company and study the job description before you interview, as your inter viewer will likely ask what you know about the company and why you want the job. (42) Get your personal papers ready: Collect and neatly arrange your important papers and work samples in a nice briefcase or portfolio. Dress appropriately: Practice good hygiene, comb or brush your hair, and dress appropriately. Even if youknow that the company dress is business-casual, dress up anyway. It shows professionalism and respect, and most importantly, that you know how to dress for interviews. (43) Be punctual: Unless otherwise instructed (e.g., to fill out a job application), arrive five to ten minutes early for the interview.Sit with good posture: If you don"t know what to do with your hands, keep them folded in your lap. This is another indication of good manners. Avoid crossing your arms over your chest, as it subliminally demonstrates a closed mind to some. (44) Read the mood: (45) Maintain eye contact: Maintain eye contact with the interviewer. It"s okay to ask questions to better answer the questions the interviewer asks you. But withhold the bulk of your questions until the interviewer asks if you have any, which is typically toward the end of the interview. Avoid asking the frivolous just because interviewers expect you to have questions. Instead, ask about important matters, such as job duties, management style and the financial health of the company. It"s not a good idea to ask questions about vacation, sick days, lunch breaks and so on, right off the bat. Ask about the lesser matters of importance during follow-up interviews. Typically, you"ll negotiate salary, benefits, perks and such in a follow-up interview. Regardless, don"t bring it up until asked, yet be ready to discuss it at anytime.A. This makes you look organized and professional. Remember to pack relevant documents such as extra resumes and reference lists, immigrant work-authorization papers, letters of recommendation, and information required on job applications. Bring at least one pen and pencil, and a notepad too.B. If the interviewer is formal, then you probably should be, too. If the interviewer is casual, then follow along while remaining courteous and professional. In either case, try to appear to be relaxed, but not too relaxed. It"s not a good idea to put your feet up on the interviewer"s desk!C. Avoid staring or you might make the interviewer uncomfortable, but don"t look away too often either. To some, failure to maintain a comfortable level of eye contact indicates that you are lying, reaching for answers or lacking confidence.D. It also helps you to formulate questions about the company and job. Interviewers typically expect you to ask such questions.E. If it"s possible without making a commotion, scoot your chair a little closer to the interviewer"s desk or take the chair closet to the desk, like you"re ready to dive right in. This shows interest and confidence. But don"t invade the interviewer"s personal space, a perimeter of about two feet by U.S. standards.F. This shows that you are eager and punctual. If you"re not at least five minutes early for an interview, you"re five minutes late! But don"t arrive more than ten minutes early, as it might be inconvenient for your interviewers. Definitely don"t be late!

Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage. It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies. We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War II, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. "So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to ke ep their own end up in journalism," Newman wrote, "that I am tempted to define 'journalism' as 'a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are'." Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England' s foremost classical-music critics, a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography(1947)became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists. Is there any chance that Cardus's criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.

What our society suffers from most today is the absence of consensus about what it and life in it ought to be; such consensus cannot be gained from society"s present stage, or from fantasies about what it ought to be. For that the present is too close and too diversified, and the future too uncertain, to make believable claims about it. A consensus in the present hence can be achieved only through a shared understanding of the past, as Homer"s epics informed those who lived centuries later, what it meant to be Greek, and by what images and ideals they were to live their lives and organize their societies. Most societies derive consensus from a long history, a language all their own, a common religion, common ancestry. The myths by which they live are based on all of these. But the United States is a country of immigrants, coming from a great variety of nations. Lately, it has been emphasized that an asocial, narcissistic personality has become characteristic of Americans, and that it is this type of personality that makes for the lack of well-being, because it prevents us from achieving consensus that would counteract a tendency to withdraw into private worlds. In this study of narcissism, Christopher Lash says that modern man, "tortured by self-consciousness, turns to new therapies not to free himself of his personal worries hut to find meaning and purpose in life, to find something to live for". There is widespread distress because national morale has declined, and we have lost an earlier sense of national vision and purpose. Contrary to rigid religions or political beliefs, as are found in totalitarian societies, our culture is one of the great individual differences, at least in principle and in theory; but this leads to disunity, even chaos. Americans believe in the value of diversity, but just because ours is a society based on individual diversity, it needs consensus about some dominating ideas more than societies based on uniform origin of their citizens. Hence, if we are to have consensus, it must be based on a myth—a vision about a common experience, a conquest that made us Americans, as the myth about the conquest of Troy formed the Greeks. Only a common myth can offer relief from the fear that life is without meaning or purpose. Myths permit us to examine our place in the world by comparing it to a shared idea. Myths are shared fantasies that form the tie that binds the individual to other members of his group. Such myths help to ward off feelings of isolations, guilt, anxiety, and purposelessness—in short, they combat isolation and the breakdown of social standards and values.

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) Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations? That question has just been exhaustively answered by Adam Burgess, a researcher at the University of Kent, in England. Oddly, however, Dr. Burgess is not a physicist, but a sociologist. For the concern rests not on scientific evidence of any danger, but is instead the result of sociological factors: it is an urban myth, supported and propagated by official sources, but no less a myth for that. Dr. Burgess presented his findings this week at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association. Mobile phones started to become widespread in the late 1980s, when the oil industry was in the middle of a concerted safety drive, Dr. Burgess notes. This was, in large part, a response to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, when 167 people died in an explosion on an oil platform off the Scottish coast. (41)______. So nobody questioned the precautionary ban on the use of mobile phones at petrol stations. The worry was that an electrical spark might ignite explosive fumes. (42)______. But it was too late. The myth had taken hold. One problem, says Dr. Burgess, is that the number of petrol-station fires increased in the late 1990s, just as mobile phones were proliferating. Richard Coates, BP"s fire-safety adviser, investigated many of the 243 such fires that occurred around the world between 1993 and 2004. He concluded that most were indeed caused by sparks igniting petrol vapor, but the sparks themselves were the result of static electricity, not electrical equipment. Most drivers will have experienced a mild electric shock when climbing out of their vehicles. It is caused by friction between driver and seat, with the result that both end up electrically charged. When the driver touches the metal frame of the vehicle, the result is sometimes a spark. (43)______. (44)______. One e-mail contained fictitious examples of such explosions said to have happened in Indonesia and Australia. Another, supposedly sent out by Shell, found its way on to an internal website at Exxon, says Dr. Burgess, where it was treated as authoritative by employees. Such memos generally explain static fires quite accurately, but mistakenly attribute them to mobile phones. Official denials, says Dr. Burgess, simply inflame the suspicions of conspiracy theorists. (45)______. Warning signs abound in Britain, America, Canada and Australia. The city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, introduced a ban last year. And, earner tins month, a member of Connecticut"s senate proposed making the use of mobile phones in petrol stations in that state punishable by a $250 fine.A. The safety drive did not apply merely to offshore operations: employees at some British oil-company offices are now required to use handrails while walking up and downstairs, for example.B. As a result, the company had to pay a huge amount of compensation to the families of the victims and law suits concerning those fires seemed to be endless.C. A further complication was the rise of the internet, where hoax memos, many claiming to originate from oil companies, warned of the danger of using mobile phones in petrol stations.D. This is particularly noticeable in Britain. The country that led the way in banning mobile phones at petrol stations is also the country that has taken the strongest line on the safety of mobile-phone use by children.E. Despite the lack of evidence that mobile phones can cause explosions, bans remain in place around the world, though the rules vary widely.F. By the late 1990s, however, phone makers—having conducted their own research—realized that there was no danger of phones causing explosions since they could not generate the required sparks.G. This seems to have become more common as plastic car interiors, synthetic garments and rubber-soled shoes have proliferated.

People thinking about the origin of language for the first time usually arrive at the conclusion that it developed gradually as a system of grunts, hisses and cries and 【C1】______ a very simple affair【C2】______. 【C3】______, when we observe the language behaviour of 【C14】______we regard as primitive cultures, we find it 【C5】______ complicated. It was believed that an Eskimo must have at the tip of his tongue a vocabulary of more than 10,000 words【C6】______to get along reasonably well, much larger than the【C7】______vocabulary of an average businessman who speaks English. 【C8】______these Eskimo words are far more highly inflected than【C9】______of any of the well-known European languages, for a【C10】______ noun can be spoken or written in 【C11】______ hundred different forms, each【C12】______a precise meaning different from 【C13】______of any other. The forms of the verbs are even more【C14】______. The Eskimo language is, 【C15】______one of the most difficult in the world to learn, 【C16】______the result that almost no traders or explorers have【C17】______tried to learn it. 【C18】______ , there has grown up, in communication between Eskimos and whites, a jargon【C19】______ to the pidgin English used in Old China, with a vocabulary of from 300 to 600 uninflected words. Most of them are derived from Eskimo but some are derived from English, Daish, Spanish, Hawaiian and other languages. It is this jargon that is usually【C20】______by travellers as "the Eskimo language".

Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information: Title: Aged People Tend to Live Alone Word limit: 160-200 words Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should end the first paragraph with the given sentence: Why do aged people tend to live alone? Your composition should be written neatly. Outline: 1) Present situation 2) Possible reasons 3) Your comment

Asia"s real boat-rocker is a growing China, not Japan, a senior American economist observed. There is so much noise surrounding and emanating from the "world"s miracle economy that it is becoming cacophonous. In Washington, DC, the latest idea is that China is becoming too successful, perhaps even dangerously so: while Capitol Hill resounds with complaints of trade surpluses and currency manipulation, the Pentagon and sundry think-tanks echo to a new drumbeat of analysts worrying about China"s 12.6% annum rise in military spending and about whether it might soon have the ability to take pre-emptive military action to force Taiwan to rejoin it. So it may be no coincidence that for three consecutive weekends the streets of big Chinese cities have been filled with the sounds of demonstrators marching and rocks being thrown, all seeking to send a different message: that Japan is the problem in Asia, not China, because of its wanton failure to face up to its history; and that by cozying up to Japan in security matters, America is allying with Asia"s pariah. Deafness is not the only risk from all this noise. The pressure towards protectionism in Washington is strong, and could put in further danger not only trade with China but also the wider climate for trade liberalization in the D0ha round of the World Trade Organization(WTO). So far words have been the main weapons used between China and Japan, but there is a chance that nationalism in either or both countries could lead the governments to strike confrontational poses over their territorial disputes in the seas that divide them, even involving their navies. And the more that nationalist positions become entrenched in both countries but especially China, the more that street protests could become stirred up, perhaps towards more violence. A revaluation of the yuan, as demanded in Congress, would not re-balance trade between America and China, though it might help a little, in due course. A "sincere" apology by Japan for its wartime atrocities might also help a little, but it would not suddenly turn Asia"s natural great-power rivals into bosom "buddies. All these issues are complex ones and, as is often the case in trade and in. historical disputes, finding solutions is likely to be far from simple.

[A]Studythefollowingtwopicturescarefullyandwriteanessayofatleast150words.[B]YouressaymustbewrittenneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(15points)[C]Youressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow:1.Describethepictures.2.Deducethepurposeofthepainterinthepictures.3.Suggestcounter-measures.

The main purpose of a resume is to convince an employer to grant you an interview. There are two kinds. One is the familiar "tombstone" that lists where you went to school and where you've worked in chronological order. The other is what I call the "functional" resume—descriptive, fun to read, unique to you and much more likely to land you an interview. It's handy to have a "tombstone" for certain occasions. But prospective employers throw away most of those unrequested"tombstone" lists, preferring to interview the quick rather than the dead. What follows are tips on writing a functional resume that will get read—a resume that makes you come alive and look interesting to employers. (1)Put yourself first: In order to write a resume others will read with enthusiasm, you have to feel important about yourself. (2)Sell what you can do, not who you are: Practice translating your personality traits, character, accomplishments and achievements into skill areas. There are at least five thousand skill areas in the world of work. Toot your own horn! Many people clutch when asked to think about their abilities. Some think they have none at all! But everyone does, and one of yours may just be the ticket an employer would be glad to punch—if only you show it. (3)Be specific, be concrete, and be brief. Remember that "brevity is the best policy." (4)Turn bad news into good: Everybody has had disappointments in work. If you have to mention yours, look for the positive side. (5)Never apologize: If you've returning to the work force after fifteen years as a parent, simply write a short paragraph(summary of background)in place of a chronology of experience. Don't apologize for working at being a mother; it's the hardest job of all. If you have no special training or higher education, just don't mention education. How to prepare yourself: The secret is to think about the self before you start writing about yourself. Take four or five hours off, not necessarily consecutive, and simply write down every accomplishment in your life, on or off the job, that made you feel effective. Don't worry at first about what it all means. Study the list and try to spot patterns. As you study your list, you will come closer to the meaning: identifying your marketable skills. Once you discover patterns, give names to your cluster of accomplishments(leadership skills, budget management skills, child development skills etc.)Try to list at least three accomplishments under the same skills heading. Now start writing your resume as if you mattered. It may take four drafts or more, and several weeks, before you've ready to show it to a stranger(friends are usually too kind)for a reaction. When you've satisfied, send it to a printer; a printed resume is far superior to photocopies. It shows an employer that you regard job hunting as serious work, worth doing right. Isn' t that the kind of person you' d want working for you? [A]A woman who lost her job as a teacher's aide due to a cutback in government funding wrote: "Principal of elementary school cited me as the only teacher' s aide she would rehire if government funds became available." [B]One resume I received included the following: "invited by my superior to straighten out our organization' s accounts receivable. Set up orderly repayment schedule, reconciled accounts weekly, and improved cash flow 100 per cent. Rewarded with raise and promotion." Notice how this woman focuses on results, specifies how she accomplished them, and mentions her reward—all in 34 words. [C]For example, if you have a flair for saving, managing and investing money, you have money management skills. [D]An acquaintance complained of being biased when losing an opportunity due to the statement "Ready to learn though not so well educated". [E]One of my former colleagues, for example, wrote resumes in three different styles in order to find out which was more preferred. The result is, of course, the one that highlights skills and education background. [F]A woman once told me about a cash-flow crisis her employer had faced. She' d agreed to work without pay for three months until business improved. Her reward was her back pay plus a 20 percent bonus. I asked why that marvelous story wasn't in her resume. She answered, "It wasn't important." What she was really saying of course was "I'm not important."