Most people hate rock music. While I am not an (1)_____ or biased person by nature, two (2)_____ and striking personal experiences of rock music (3)_____ the past two weeks have persuaded me that it has become a duty for those of us with enough common (4)_____ to see its potential dangers to point them out. My first experience—perhaps a (5)_____ one, but highly symptomatic—was the realization that if I spoke to my teenage son when he was listening to rock music through headphones, he replied in an (6)_____ loud voice, as if there was something wrong with his hearing. The second (7)_____ when I went with him to a "concert" and witnessed for myself what these affairs are like. (8)_____ I went to that concert, my first and assuredly my last, I had always (9)_____ the "live-and-let-live" attitude that rock music was simply not my (10)_____ but that other people had every fight to enjoy it if it was theirs. But what I saw and heard (11)_____ me that we are allowing something very powerful to take (12)_____ of the younger generation today. (13)_____, I noticed such collective madness, brought about by the noise (14)_____. But secondly, and far more dangerously, I observed that after a time everyone was (15)_____ by the noise, and gave up his/her individuality. In the end I was in the middle of a (16)_____ crowd who clapped and stamped and (17)_____ around like monkeys. It was the most degrading human spectacle (18)_____ I have ever had the (19)_____ to witness, and I seriously believe that in time to come our present younger generation would thank us if we managed to put a (20)_____ to it now.

Watching a three-and-a-half-pound chicken roast in 14 minutes, time loses all meaning. The skin turns gold and crisp, juices immediately rise to the surface, and the flesh firms before your eyes. It"s dizzying and seductive, like the home makeovers on TV that compress as "Wow". you think "I could do this every single night". The makers of the TurboChef, a super-fast oven, used at Subway and Starbucks and, recently, by chefs like Charlie Trotter and Gray Kurtz, are banking on that reaction. Speed ovens made by TurboChef, Merrychef. Electrolux and others are common in commercial kitchens: they generally use some layering of microwave, convection, steam and infrared technologies, which provides even cooking, moistness and browning, all at high speed. No single technology has been able m produce all of those traits. The combination ovens are also mining up. in more limited roles, in some fine-dining kitchens. Mr. Trotter installed a commercial TurboChef in his upscale takeout cafe, Trotter"s to go in Chicago about six years ago. Mr. Kurtz says that his speed oven is used mostly for soufflés, reducing the cooking time from 25 minutes to 2. "I liked taking that line off the menu where you have to order the souffi6 at the beginning of the meal", he said. This is hardly an everyday concern for home cooks. But manufacturers are unable to resist the lure of the lucrative residential market: companies like Electrolux. G.E. and Sharp already sell speed ovens for home cooks. TurboChef, however, has put an unusual amount of research and design energy into adapting its product for residential use. It will be introduced next month, priced at $5,995 for a solo unit and $7,895 for a TurboChef combined with a conventional oven. The company is pitching—hard—the notion that its appliance will do no less than revolutionize American home cooking. "I can"t imagine a home cook who wouldn"t respond to the speed of this oven", said Mr. Trotter, who has become a consultant and spokesman for TurboChef. "But speed alone wouldn"t validate it. The results are glorious". Glorious is a strong word. So last week, I hauled raw chickens and a jug of soufflé batter over to TurboChef"s New York office for a road test. Three hours later, it was clear that the technology used by TurboChef—a combination of high-speed convection for rapid heat transfer and browning, plus "controlled bursts" of microwave for moist, even cooking—is far more successful for actual cooking than a microwave alone

The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, unalloyed, unslanted, objectively selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important assignment confronting American journalism — to make clear to the reader the problems of the day, to make international news as understandable as community news, to recognize that there is no longer any such thing (with the possible exception of such scribbling as society and club news) as "local" news, because any event in the international area has a local reaction in manpower draft, in economic strain, in terms, indeed, of our very way of life. (46) There is in journalism a widespread view that when you embark on interpretation, you are entering choppy and dangerous waters, the swirling tides of opinion. This is nonsense. The opponents of interpretation insist that the writer and the editor shall confine himself to the "facts". This insistence raises two questions: What are the facts? And: Are the bare facts enough? As to the first query, consider how a so-called "factual" story comes about. The reporter collects, say, fifty facts; out of these fifty, his space allotment being necessarily restricted, he selects the ten, which he considers most important. This is Judgment Number One. Then he or his editor decides which of these ten facts shall constitute the lead of the piece (This is important decision because many readers do not proceed beyond the first paragraph. ) This is Judgment Number Two. (47) Then the night editor determines whether the article shall be presented on page one, where it has a large impact, or on page twenty-four, where it has little. Judgment Number Three. Thus, in the presentation of a so-called "factual" or "objective" story, at least three judgments are involved. (48) And they are judgments not at all unlike those involved in interpretation, in which reporters and editors, calling upon their research resources, their general background, and their "news neutralism, " arrive at a conclusion as to the significance of the news. (49) The two areas of judgment, presentation of the news and its interpretation, are both objective rather than subjective processes — as objective, that is, as any human being can be. (Note in passing: even though complete objectivity can never be achieved, nevertheless the ideal must always be the beacon on the murky news channels. ) (50) If an editor is intent on slanting the news, he can do it in other ways and more effectively than by interpretation, and he can do it by the selection of those facts that prop up his particular plea. Or he can do it by the pay he gives a story — promoting it to page one or demoting it to page thirty.

During the 1980s, unemployment and underemployment in some countries was as high as 90 percent. Some countries did not (1)_____ enough food; basic needs in housing and clothing were not (2)_____. Many of these countries looked to the industrial processes of the developed nations (3)_____ solutions. (4)_____, problems cannot always be solved by copying the industrialized nations. Industry in the developed nations is highly automated and very (5)_____. It provides fewer jobs than labor-intensive industrial processes, and highly (6)_____ workers are needed to (7)_____ and repair the equipment. These workers must be trained, (8)_____ many nations do not have the necessary training institutions. Thus, the (9)_____ of importing industry becomes higher. Students must be sent abroad to (10)_____ vocational and professional training. (11)_____, just to begin training, the students must (12)_____ learn English, French, German, or Japanese. The students then spend many years abroad, and (13)_____ do not return home. All nations agree that science and technology (14)_____ be shared. The point is: countries (15)_____ the industrial processes of the developed nations need to look carefully (16)_____ the costs, because many of these costs are (17)_____. Students from these nations should (18)_____ the problems of the industrialized countries closely. (19)_____ care, they will take home not the problems of science and technology, (20)_____ the benefits.

In the following article, some sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable one 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. It is difficult to overstate how the reforms since 1978 have improved the life of the average citizen in China. According to China"s Office on Poverty Alleviation and Development, well over 100 million individuals have risen out of destitution and now live above the official poverty line (set at annual per capita income below 640, which equals $77). At present, 42 million Chinese still live below the poverty line. Much work, of course, remains to be done in this regard. In addition to helping alleviate poverty, the economic reforms in China have brought overall gains as well as the gains per capital income for both urban and rural residents suggest. While there is some question on the veracity of data. The overall quality of life for the average citizen in China has improved dramatically since the reform in 1978. Citizens now have access to better services in crucial areas such as health care and "education. (41)______. The better lives that citizens in China now lead is a direct result of the decision by China"s leadership in 1978 to pursue the path of economic reform in a more marked-oriented direction. Despite the overall importance of the domestic economy in determining China"s economic future, there still are two reasons why China"s entry to the WTO will help its citizens lead better lives. (42)______. As noted above, government officials in China report that roughly 20% of the increase in GDP during the 1990"s is attributable to growth in exports. Still, exports in some key sectors such as textiles and other labor-intensive sectors would expand. Overall, in light of long-term dynamic effects, the Chinese government predicts that China"s entry to the WTO would increase its GDP by 95.5 billion ($23.64 billion), or 1.5 percent by 2005. And while acknowledging that some 10 million jobs will be lost in agriculture, auto and machinery sectors. (43)______. Chinese firms will also face a more stable export environment, one less subject to anti-dumping and special safeguard provisions. The country will be able to enjoy stable multilateral preferential trade polices in a rules-based market. (44)______. As noted above, China"s transition to a market-oriented economy is not complete and elements of centralized planning remain. And it is quite clear that despite the impressive gains, China has made economically over the past 20 years, many intractable problems remain, such as the restructuring of state-owned enterprises half of which are losing money. China"s industrial landscape is littered with" empty-shell enterprises" and state officials routinely argue that some 30% of the workforce in SOEs is superfluous. China"s banking system is in precarious position as well, given declining capital adequacy and the continued reliance of the state-banking system on policy-based lending as opposed to examination of market criteria. To a large extent these economic problems reflect the inherent difficulty of trying to recover from 30 years of horribly misguided economic policies. (45)______.A. Millions more now have electricity (and consequently, refrigeration) and telephone service as well.B. The second and more important reason that China"s entry to the WTO will help China"s citizenry is that it will strengthen the hand of pro-reform elements in the government.C. The best way out of this economic dilemma, however, is for China to continue to strengthen its reform effort, not to restrict.D. In the late-1990s and early-2000s, the focus was also on industrial reform, which involved the painful closing of unprofitable state-owned factories and the development of social security systems.E. First, as China"s largest export market after Hong Kong, the United States plays a primary role in enriching Chinese companies, primarily non-state-owned entities.F. Surprisingly, many international companies now spend a lot of money on training.G. Chinese economists predict that WTO membership will create 12 million jobs in other sectors such as textiles, toys, and footwear.

I don' t think you can get away.

For anyone who is set on a career in fashion it is not enough to have succeeded in college. The real test is whether they can survive and become established during their early 20s, making a name for themselves in the real world where business skills can count for as much as flair and creativity. Fashion is a hard business. There is a continuous amount of stress because work is at a constant breakneck speed to prepare for the next season"s collections. It is extremely competitive and there is the constant need to cultivate good coverage in newspapers and magazines. It also requires continual freshness because the appetite for new ideas is insatiable(不能满足的). "We try to warn people before they come to us about how tough it is", says Lydia Kemeny, the Head of Fashion at St. Martin"s School of Art in London, "and we point out that drive and determination are essential". This may seem far removed from the popular image of trendy(时髦的) and dilettante(浅薄的) young people spending their time designing pretty dresses. That may well be what they do in their first year of study but a good college won"t be slow in introducing students to commercial realities. "We don"t stamp on the blossoming flower of creativity but in the second year we start introducing the constraints of price, manufacturability, marketing and so on". Almost all fashion design is done to a brief(任务提示，说明). It is not a form of self-expression as such, although there is certainly room for imagination and innovation. Most young designers are going to end up as employees of a manufacturer or fashion house and they still need to be able to work within the characteristic style of their employer. Even those students who are most avant-garde[(艺术等)激进派] in their own taste of clothes and image may need to adapt to produce designs which are right for the mainstream Marks and Spencer type of market. They also have to be able to work at both the exclusively expensive and the cheap end of the market and the challenge to produce good design inexpensively may well be more demanding than where money is no object.

【F1】 Breathing particulate-laden(aka smoggy)air may be hardening your arteries faster than normal, according to research published today in PLOS Medicine. While everyones' arteries harden gradually with age, a team of researchers led by epidemiologist Sara Adar of the University of Michigan School of Public Health discovered that higher concentrations of fine particulate air pollution were linked to a faster thickening of the inner two layers of the carotid artery.【F2】 Because the carotid artery feeds blood to the neck, head, and brain, a narrowing or blockage there can trigger strokes. And general atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, and heart failure. 【F3】 Past research has demonstrated that the rates of stroke and heart attack are higher in polluted areas, but experts haven't been able to pinpoint just how polluted air is raising peoples' risk for heart attack or stroke. This time, Adar's team, along with Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and medicine at the University of Washington, was able to directly measure carotid artery thickness and link it to air pollution data. The study involved 5, 362 people between the ages of 45 and 84 living in six different cities that are part of the MESA AIR(Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution)research project, led by Joel Kaufman. Each participant underwent two carotid artery ultrasounds three years apart. These measurements were then correlated with data on fine particulate air pollution.【F4】 While the artery walls of all participants increased by 14 micrometers per year, the arteries of those who were exposed to higher levels of fine particulate air pollution in their homes thickened faster than their neighbors in other parts of the city. 【F5】 Interestingly, the researchers also found the reverse effect to be true: reducing fine particulate air pollution levels slowed down atherosclerosis progression. Carotid artery measurements are considered by experts to be an indicator for arterial plaque and hardening throughout the body.

You are supposed to get an MA degree this semester and you want to apply for a job as an English teacher in a university. Now write a letter to its personnel department, sending your resume and making a self-recommendation. Write your letter 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.

Studythegraphsbelowcarefullyandwriteanessayofabout200words.Youressaymustcoveralltheinformationprovidedandmeettherequirementsbelow:1.interpretthepicture;2.explaintherolesofthemigrantworkers;3.yourcomments.

Assuming that a manager is going to interview some job applicants and one of his friends gives him a piece of advice that the first impression is not a reliable basis for judgment. This manager wants to hear more from others and decides to have a wall newspaper put up for more views on that topic. 1) You are going to write an article to offer your opinion about it. 2) You should write about 160～200 words neatly.

LookbeforeYouGivetheInstructionWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

If open-source software is supposed to be free, how does anyone selling it make any money? It"s not that different from how other software companies make money. You"d think that a software company would make most of its money from, well, selling software. But you"d be wrong. For one thing, companies don"t sell software, strictly speaking; they license it. The profit margin on a software license is nearly 100 percent, which is why Microsoft gushes billions of dollars every quarter. But what"s the value of a license to a customer? A license doesn"t deliver the code, provide the utilities to get a piece of software running, or answer the phone when something inevitably goes wrong. The value of software, in short, doesn"t lie in the software alone. The value is in making sure the soft-ware does its job. Just as a traveler should look at the overall price of a vacation package instead of obsessing over the price of the plane ticket or hotel mom, a smart tech buyer won"t focus on how much the license costs and ignore the support contract or the maintenance agreement. Open-source is not that different. If you want the software to work, you have to pay to ensure it will work. The open-source companies have refined the software model by selling subscriptions. They roll together support and maintenance and charge an annual fee, which is a healthy model, though not quite as wonderful as Microsoft"s money-raking one. Tellingly, even Microsoft is casting an envious eye at aspects of the open-source business model. The company has been taking halting steps toward a similar subscription scheme for its software sales. Microsoft"s subscription program, known as Soft-ware Assurance, provides maintenance and support together with a software license. It lets you up-grade to Microsoft"s next version of the software for a predictable sum. But it also contains an implicit threat: If you don"t switch to Software Assurance now, who knows how much Microsoft will charge you when you decide to upgrade? Chief information officers hate this kind of "assurance", since they"re often perfectly happy running older versions of software that are proven and stable. Microsoft, on the other hand, rakes in the software-licensing fees only when customers upgrade. Software Assurance is Microsoft"s attempt to get those same licensing fees but wrap them together with the service and support needed to keep systems running. That"s why Microsoft finds the open-source model so threatening: open-source companies have no vested interest in getting more licensing fees and don"t have to pad their service contracts with that extra cost. In the end, the main difference between open-source and proprietary software companies may be the size of the check you have to write.

"Secret"EntertainingStudythedrawingcarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretthesocialphenomenonreflectedbyit,and3)giveyourpointofview.Youshouldwrite160-200words.

AMGEN, the world"s biggest biotechnology company, made its fortune from a drug that fortifies the blood of patients who are undergoing dialysis. On December 17th, the California Company acquired some new blood of its own with the purchase of Immunex, a Seattle-based biotechnology company, for $16 billion. This deal, a biotech-industry record, gives Amgen a firm footing in the multibillion-dollar market in inflammation control. Immunex"s most profitable product is Enbrel, a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.(46) Amgen hopes to triple the drug"s sales to more than $3 billion by 2005, widening its use to other diseases and overcoming manufacturing constraints that have kept the drug in short supply. With this takeover, Immunex passes from one parent to another. American Home Products (AHP) holds 41% of the shares, and has given the firm sales and marketing support. (47) But AHP (American Household Products) has been selling down its stake since last year, in part to finance a $3.8 billion settlement of claims against its diet drugs. (48) Although Amen calls itself a biotech company, its market capitalisation of around $62 billion makes it larger than Pharmacia and several other well-known mainstream drug companies, traditionally considered the big brothers of biotech. But Amgen likes to think of itself as less bureaucratic and more entrepreneurial than its pharmaceutical brethren, and it is free of such big-pharma woes as imminent patent expiry. (49) However, as Joseph Dougherty, a biotech analyst at Lehman Brothers, points out, -Amgen will find it hard to retain the freedom of its youth as it strives to expand its sales by more than 30% a year. Historically, pharmaceutical companies have used their deep pockets to buy biotech companies. Now, increasingly, biotech companies are buying each other (see chart). Such industry consolidation is driven by strategy rather than desperation, according to Scott Morrison. a consultant with Ernst & Young. (50) Companies are pooling their resources to build scale in research and development, and in sales, or to fill holes-in their product pipelines, as Amgen has just done. With almost 1,400 biotech companies in America, and a comparable number in Europe, there is plenty of room for more togetherness.

Video games have become increasingly realistic, especially those involving armed combat. America" s armed forces have even used video games【C1】______recruitment and【C2】______tools. But the desire to play games is not the【C3】______why the United States Air Force recently【C4】______a procurement request for 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) video-game consoles. It intends to link them【C5】______to build a supercomputer that will【C6】______Linux, a free, open-source operating system. It will be used for research, including the development of high-definition imaging systems for radar, and will cost around one-tenth as much as a conventional supercomputer. The air force has already built a smaller computer【C7】______a cluster of 336 PS3s. This is merely the latest example of a (n)【C8】______trend. There is a long tradition of technology developed for military use filtering【C9】______to consumer markets: satellite-navigation systems【C10】______to guide missiles can also help hikers find their way, and head-up displays have【C11】______from jet fighters to family cars. But technology is increasingly moving in the other【C12】______ , too, as consumer products are【C13】______for military use. Traditionally the military has preferred to develop and control its own technology, not just for tactical advantage but also to【C14】______that equipment was tough and【C15】______enough for those whose lives would depend on it. That began to change after the cold war as defence budgets became【C16】______and the development of【C17】______ industrial and consumer products accelerated. As some of these technologies have become commoditised products which are【C18】______to everyone—friend and foe alike—there seems less【C19】______not to buy them and use the savings for more critical equipment that needs to be built-to-order. And consumer products can often be tweaked to make them more rugged or【C20】______when necessary.

Vinton Cerf, known as the father of the Internet, said on Wednesday that the Web was outgrowing the planet Earth and the time had come to take the information superhighway to outer space. "The Internet is growing quickly, and we still have a lot of work to do to cover the planet." Cerf told the first day of the annual conference of Internet Society in Geneva where more than 1 500 cyberspace fans have gathered to seek answers to questions about the tangled web of the Internet. 【F1】 Cerf believed that it would soon be possible to send real-time science data on the Internet from a space mission orbiting another planet such as Mars. "There is now an effort under way to design and build an interplanetary Internet. The space research community is coming closer and closer and merging. We think that we will see interplanetary Internet networks that look very much like the ones we use today.【F2】 We will need interplanetary gateways and there will be protocols to transmit data between these gateways." Cerf said. Francois Fluckiger, a scientist attending the conference from the European Particle Physics Laboratory near Geneva, was not entirely convinced, saying: "We need dreams like this. But I don"t know any Martian whom I"d like to communicate with through the Internet." Cerf has been working with NASA"s Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory—the people behind the recent Mars expedition—to design what he calls an "interplanetary Internet protocol".【F3】 He believes that astronauts will want to use the Internet, although special problems remain with interference and delay. "This is quite real. The effort is becoming extraordinarily concrete over the next few months because the next Mars mission is in planning stages now," Cerf told the conference, "If we use domain names like Earth or Mars ... jet propulsion laboratory people would be coming together with people from the Internet community." He added, "【F4】 The idea is to take the interplanetary Internet design and make it a part of the infrastructure of the Mars mission." He later told a news conference that designing this system now would prepare mankind for future technological advances. "The whole idea is to create an architecture so the design works anywhere. I don"t know where we"re going to have to put it but my guess is that we"ll be going out there some time," Cerf said, "【F5】 If you think 100 years from now, it is entirely possible that what will be purely research 50 years from now will become commercial 100 years from now. The Internet was the same—it started as pure research but now it is commercialized."

TheTimeofGreenLightWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

Greg Focker, played by Ben Stiller, represents a generation of American kids (1)_____ in the 1980s on the philosophy that any achievement, however slight, (2)_____ a ribbon. (3)_____ replaced punishment; criticism became a dirty word. In Texas, teachers were advised to (4)_____ using red ink, the colour of (5)_____. In California, a task force was set up to (6)_____ the concept of self worth into the education system. Swathing youngsters in a (7)_____ shield of self-esteem, went the philosophy, would protect them from the nasty things in life, such as bad school grades, underage sex, drug abuse, dead-end jobs and criminality. (8)_____ that the ninth-place ribbons are in danger of strangling the (9)_____ children they were supposed to help. America"s (10)_____ with self-esteem—like all developments in psychology, it gradually (11)_____ its way to Britain—has turned children who were (12)_____ with (13)_____ into adults who (14)_____ at even the mildest brickbats. Many believe that the feel-good culture has risen at the (15)_____ of traditional education, an opinion espoused in a new book, Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can"t Read, Write, or Add, by the conservative commentator Charles Sykes. Not only that, but the foundations (16)_____ which the self-esteem industry is built are being (17)_____ as decidedly shaky. Roy Baumeister, professor of psychology at Florida State University and once a self-esteem enthusiast, is now (18)_____ a revision of the populist orthodoxy. "After all these years, I"m sorry to say, my recommendation is this: forget, about self-esteem and (19)_____ more on self-control and self-discipline", he wrote recently. "Recent work suggests this would be good for the individual and good for society—and might even be able to (20)_____ some of those promises that self-esteem once made but could not keep".

Studythefollowinggraphcarefullyandwriteanessayin160-200words.Youressayshouldcoverthesetwopoints:1)describethegraph,2)possiblereasonsoftheincreaseoftheIntellectualPropertyCases.Youshouldwriteneatly.