In Cambodia, the choice of a spouse is a complex one for the young male. It may involve not only his parents and his friends, 【B1】______those of the young woman, but also a matchmaker. A young man can【B2】______a likely spouse on his own and then ask his parents to【B3】______the marriage negotiations, or the young man' s parents may make the choice of a spouse, giving the child little to say in the selection.【B4】______, a girl may veto the spouse her parents have chosen.【B5】______a spouse has been selected, each family investigates the other to make sure its child is marrying【B6】______a good family. The traditional wedding is a long and colorful affair. Formerly it lasted three days,【B7】______by the 1980s it more commonly lasted a day and a half. Buddhist priests offer a short sermon and【B8】______prayers of blessing. Parts of the ceremony involve ritual hair cutting, 【B9】______cotton threads soaked in holy water around the bride's and groom's wrists, and【B10】______a candle around a circle of happily married and respected couples to bless the【B11】______. Newlyweds traditionally move in with the wife's parents and may【B12】______with them up to a year,【B13】______they can build a new house nearby. Divorce is legal and easy to【B14】______, but not common. Divorced persons are【B15】______with some disapproval. Each spouse retains【B16】______property he or she【B17】______into the marriage, and jointly-acquired property is【B18】______equally. Divorced persons may remarry, but a gender prejudice【B19】______up: The divorced male doesn't have a waiting period before he can remarry【B20】______the woman must wait ten months.

TheCultural"HotPot"Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

The basic unit of money in the U.S. is dollar which is worth 100 cents.

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) (41)______. The synthetic(合成的) polymer(聚合的) device is the first flexible hydrophilic(吸水的) artificial cornea to be produced and inserted into a human. It is the product of 8 years work by researchers at the Lions Eye Institute of the University of WA"S Department of Ophthalmic Biomaterials. (42)______. "First, the plastic material used to construct the artificial cornea absorbs water and becomes elastic and soft like human tissue." Prof. Chirial told Australian Science. "A second novel characteristic is that the periphery(外围) is a sponge with pores allowing host tissue to grow into it. Third, the device uses interpenetrating(渗透) polymer networks to link the central transparent area with the non-transparent periphery." (43)______. The first recipient(接纳者)of the device, a 79-year-old WA man who was blind in one eye, can now read large print. A further eight patients are awaiting the technically challenging two-step procedure, with the first due to be operated on this month. (44)______. Many patients admitted to the trial have experienced rejection of previous human corneal grafts due to an immune reaction or medical syndrome. In others who have had a chemical burn to an eye, the artificial graft offers their only hope of restored vision. A senior ophthalmologist with the team, Dr. Geoffrey Crawford, said the artificial cornea was a promising development for people in underdeveloped countries where an absence of eye banks meant that less than 1% of those needing a human corneal graft ever get one. (45)______.A. It is novel in three ways according to its designer, Romanian-trained polymer chemist Professor Trainan Chirial, who set up the department in 1986.B. The device is designed to replace a diseased or damaged cornea or a failed human graft and can give back sight to some patients.C. The artificial cornea was made from a transparent matrix of collagen and a synthetic polymer.D. Before the device can be marketed, an international trial of at least 50 patients in five centers worldwide needs to be completed successfully.E. However, he conceded that the cost of the device would need to fall dramatically for it to be used in any widespread way.F. He explained that material in the center and periphery have an identical chemical composition but are produced by different chemical processes, hence their different light-transmitting qualities.G. Western Australian researchers have patented an artificial cornea with the potential to benefit blind or partially sighted individuals worldwide.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

While many people might assume that Mothers" Day is a holiday invented by the fine folks at Hallmark, it"s not so. The earliest Mothers" Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece, honoring Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. The Romans called their version of the event the Hilaria, and celebrated on the Ides(古罗马历中的3月15日) of March by making offerings in the temple of Cybele, the mother of the Gods. Early Christians celebrated the festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. In more recent times, relatively speaking—England in the 1600s—the celebration was expanded to include all mothers with "Mothering Sunday" being celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter). (46) Besides attending church services in honor of the Virgin Mary, children returned home from the cities with gifts, flowers, and special Mothering Day cakes that were important parts of the celebration. Mothers" Day festivities in the United States date back to 1872 when Julia Ward Howe (her other claim to fame was writing the lyrics(歌词) for the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") suggested the day be dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mothers" Day meetings in Boston, Massachusetts ever year. In 1907, Ana Jarvis, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania school teacher, furthered the cause by beginning a campaign to establish a national Mothers" Day. (47) Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother"s church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mothers" Day on the second anniversary of her mother"s death, which happened to be on the 2nd Sunday of May that year. By the following year, Mothers" Day was also being celebrated in Philadelphia. Not content to rest on her laurels(殊荣), Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessmen, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mothers" Day and in 1912, the Mothers" Day International Association was incorporated for the purpose of promoting the day and its observance. (48) In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made it official by proclaiming Mothers" Day a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May. It is somewhat ironic that after all her efforts, Ana Jarvis ended up growing bitter over what she perceived as the corruption of the holiday she created. (49) She hated the commercialization of the holiday and grew so enraged by it that she filed a lawsuit to stop a 1923 Mothers" Day festival and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a mothers" gathering where women sold white carnations(康乃馨)—Jarvis" symbol for mothers—to raise money. Ana Jarvis" story is not a happy one. Things went from bad to worse and she eventually lost everything and everyone that was close to her and died alone in a sanatorium(疗养地) in 1948. Shortly before her death, Jarvis told a reporter she was sorry she had ever started Mothers" Day. (50) Aha may be gone. but Mothers" Day lives on, regardless of whether it meets her approval. Many countries throughout the world celebrate Mothers" Day at various times throughout the year, but some such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium also celebrate Mothers" Day on the second Sunday of May.

Just east of downtown Irvine, in southern California, a pastoral landscape is under construction. Little by little, a former military airport is being dismantled, to be replaced by grass, trees and a canyon 70 feet(21 meters)deep. When it is finished, Orange County"s Great Park will cover 1,350 acres(550 hectares), more than one-and-a-half times as much as Central Park in New York. The biggest landscaped municipal park to be built in more than a century, it reveals much about how American attitudes to open space have changed. Urban parks are back in fashion. New York plans to build a huge park on top of the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. Innumerable town squares and pocket parks have been created or beautified, even in places like Detroit. City planners, who once viewed parks as financial drains and nests of crime, now see them as magnets for tourists and creative types. The great parks that were built in the second half of the 19th century were intended to counteract the ill effects of city living, and so are the new ones. But the perceived ills have changed. Frederick Olmsted, who designed Central Park and many others, wanted to provide people with a break from their tough, dirty jobs. Ken Smith, the Great Park"s architect, reckons the residents of Orange County are quite idle enough. What they need is exercise: hence the park"s proposed 21 football fields and 12 baseball fields, together with some exhausting-looking walks. Another difference is that parks are now expected to function like natural ecosystems as well as looking like them. The Great Park will use recycled water in its lake(older parks often used mains water). The runways will be dismantled and turned into roads and a memorial. In a nod to the local-food movement, the park will include land for farming. Even the car park will be situated in an orange orchard. Most striking of all is the new parks" deference to history. America"s great 19th-century landscape architects saw the land as a blank slate. An entire village was pulled down to build Central Park. By contrast, Denver"s park preserves a control tower, and the Great Park will convert an air-dock into a museum and retain the outline of a runway. A river diverted underground by the marines will be restored to its former course. The preservation lobby is stronger these days. And besides, says Yehudi Gaffen, a partner in the Great Park project, "Southern California has so little history that we should try to keep some of it."

A Letter of Consultation Write a letter of consultation of about 100 words based on the following situation: Your roommate Jim has suffered from psychological problems. Worried about him as you are, you don't know how to help him. Now write a letter to a psychological expert, Professor White, to ask for advice. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

WhatIsMoreUrgent?Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

BSection III Writing/B

At an office in Hampton, Virginia, in the east of the United States, a team of ten net savvy workers sources the web for sexual content, from basic sex education to sex acts. This "quality assurance" team is making sure that the blocking component of Symantec"s Norton Internet Security 2000 computer program remains effective. This is because there is widespread parental concern about blocking websites with sexual content from children. Website blocking is nothing new—services like Net Nanny and programs like Cyber Patrol and Guard Dog have been around for a few years now, protecting children and reassuring parents that only wholesome websites are accessed by the youngsters. Net Nanny and Cyber Patrol will prevent access to any questionable sites when the program is in place, Now Symantec says it has created a new category in consumer software with a package that combines website blocking with a "firewall", protecting your computer from hackers and viruses, as well as preventing careless disclosure of personal data. In short, Norton Internet Security, as the program is called, is designed to serve as the guardian of your digital health, keeping the bad things out and the private things in. The Symantec program can be configured in many ways, the website blocking, for example, can be set to be either selectively permissive or total in its banning of websites, or switched off entirely. Also, Symantec"s list of no-go areas, which on the CD now stand at around 36,000 addressed, is not confined to sex sites. The team in Virginia is also on the lookout for sites advocating drags, or which contain references to violence or gambling, and keeps a watch on chat rooms, e-mail services, entertainment portals—even job search and financial pages. These sites can be blocked by the program. Computer users can also refresh the address list online with the Live update feature which is used by Norton Anti-Virus (which is bundled with NIS) to load the latest virus definitions. This service is free for the first year but, including virus definition updates; it costs $19.95 a year there-after. The system is not perfect, however. Limited testing found the blocking of some "questionable" sites was not comprehensive. Trying to get access to a well-known US site such as Playboy results in an immediate blocking message with a standard invitation to report an "incorrectly categorized" site. By contrast, you could find in other countries such as New Zealand a sex site which declared itself to be "dedicated to providing sexual material, imaged, and anything a little bit unusual for sex enthusiasts all over the country.

right and left

BSection III Writing/B

These days we hear lots of nonsense about the "great classless society". The idea that the twentieth century is the age of the common man has become one of the great cliches of our time. The same old arguments are put forward in evidence. Here are some of them: monarchy as a system of government has been completely discarded. In a number of countries the victory has been completed. The people rule; the great millennium has become a political reality. But has it? Close examination doesn 't bear out the claim. It is a fallacy to suppose that all men are equal and that society will be leveled out if you provide everybody with the same educational opportunities. The fact is that nature dispenses brains and ability with a total disregard for the principle of equality. The old rules of the jungle, survival of the fittest, and might is right are still with us. The spread of education has destroyed the old class system and created a new one. Rewards are based on merit. For aristocracy "read meritocracy"; in other respects, society remains unaltered: the class system is rigidly maintained. What is the first thing people do when they become rich? They use their wealth to secure the best possible opportunities for their children, to give them a good start in life. For all the lip service we pay to the idea of equality, we do not consider this wrong in the western world. Private schools offer unfair advantages over state schools are not banned. In this way, the new meritocracy can perpetuate itself to a certain extent: an able child from a wealthy home can succeed far more rapidly than his poorer counterpart. Wealth is also used indiscriminately to further political ends. It would be almost impossible to become the leader of a democracy without massive financial backing. Money is as powerful a weapon as ever it was. In societies wholly dedicated to the principle of social equality, privileged private education is forbidden. But even here people are rewarded according to their abilities. In fact, so great is the need for skilled workers that the least able may be neglected. Bright children are carefully and expensively trained to become future rulers. In the end, all political ideologies boil down to the same thing: class divisions persist whether you are ruled by a feudal king or an educated peasant.

In 1880, Sir Joshua Waddilove, a Victorian philanthropist, founded Provident Financial to provide affordable loans to working-class families in and around Bradford, in northern England. This month his company, now one of Britain"s leading providers of "home credit"—small, short-term, unsecured loans—began the nationwide rollout of Vanquis, a credit card aimed at people that mainstream lenders shun. The card offers up to they impose extra charges, such as application fees; and they cap their potential losses by lending only small amounts ($500 is a typical credit limit). All this is easier to describe than to do, especially when the economy slows. After the bursting of the technology bubble in 2000, several sub-prime credit-card providers failed. Now there are only around 100, of which nine issue credit cards. Survivors such as Metris and Providian, two of the bigger sub-prime card companies, have become choosier about their customers" credit histories. As the economy recovered, so did lenders" fortunes. Fitch, a rating agency, says that the proportion of sub-prime credit-card borrowers who are more than 60 days in arrears(a good predictor of eventual default) is the lowest since November 2001. But with American interest rates rising again, some worry about another squeeze. As Fitch"s Michael Dean points out, sub-prime borrowers tend to have not just higher-rate credit cards, but dearer auto loans and variable-rate mortgages as well. That makes a risky business even riskier.

Professor Wang, your senior middle school English teacher, has been teaching for exactly thirty years. Your former classmates are going to hold a party to celebrate this special occasion. You cannot attend the party for a certain reason. So you are going to write a letter to Professor Wang to express your congratulations as well as your apology for failing to show up in the party. 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.

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) A common problem in human relations is the lack of assertiveness in other words, the inability to express yourself and claim your rights without violating the fights of others. Do not confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness. (41)______. Learning to communicate assertively involves learning to be honest, open and direct. You can learn to speak up, make requests, ask for favors and accept compliments, and also to express negative thoughts (complaints, resentment, criticism, disagreement), reject intimidation, refuse requests, and demand to be left alone. (42)______. In most cultures higher status has traditionally been given to the masculine gender. Over the centuries, women in many societies learned to remain non-assertive, to stay out of the public eye, to keep their voices down, to be discreet and indirect, not to push, and in the end not even to dare to desire. The vast majority of opportunities for public influence—the ability to forge useful relationships other than friendship, speak up in public, create organizations, use force, and hold important positions in government, business, academia, and in the medical and legal field—were long recognized as men"s privilege and right. (43)______. Back in the 1960s modern feminists noted that most American women (and also a fair number of men) were unable to speak up for themselves in the workplace or in personal relationships; they needed help in learning to be assertive. To fill this gap in communication skills, certain colleges, mental health centers and private consultants began to hold "assertiveness training workshops". These early programs were often part of employer-sponsored professional development training that aimed, among other things, to make employees more effective in communicating with customers, with representatives of other firms and with each other. What does assertiveness training inculcate? The idea at its core is to stop being, or sounding, "wishy-washy". Do not apologize needlessly, make excuses, give long explanations or generally beat around the bush. Very often these weak communicative strategies cause the listener to receive a mixed, unclear or sometimes, just plain wrong message. Assertiveness trainers teach you to identify what is really important for you. Then you must work out in advance (if possible) the point you need to make and how best to make it. Deliver the message dearly and directly (but without memorizing sentences, never a good tactic). (44)______. Remember also that you axe entitled to your feelings. Your true feelings need no justification. However, at the same time, be a good listener listen more often than you speak. Also pay attention to your listener when you are speaking. Be positive. Notice and appreciate the efforts of others. Give credit where credit is due. You are being legitimately assertive when you stand up for your rights in such a way that the rights of others are not violated. Beyond just demanding your fights, you must learn that you can talk about yourself, your feelings, opinions and interests, without being self-conscious. You can accept compliments without embarrassment. You can ask for clarification. (45)______. After all, how does letting bad decisions go unchallenged contribute to making anything better?A. Some people think that assertiveness training turns nice, accommodating people into complainers or calculating manipulators. Not so: it"s your right to protect yourself when something seems unfair. Only you know your true discomfort level and emotional needs. No one should be allowed to get away with presuming to think or feel for you.B. Being aggressive is acting in a self-centered, inconsiderate, arrogantly demanding and hostile manner; this is often counterproductive, since many people react by shutting their minds to your ideas.C. You can disagree with someone openly and say no to requests without feeling guilty. You can ask why and question authority, not in order to rebel, but to assume responsibility for your share in controlling a situation.D. This situation began to change significantly in the West about two hundred years ago. Over the past 40 years, the US Congress has made numerous laws forbidding discrimination based on gender.E. The fewer words you use, the greater will be the impact of what you say. Powerful people communicate succinctly and in measured tones, not stridently. Raising your voice makes you sound defensive and angry, not strong.F. Underlying assertiveness training, obviously, is the belief that we are all created equal and should treat each other as equals. If you were taught as a child to assume that your perceptions, opinions, feelings and wants were less important than those of others, you can either go on behaving according to those assumptions or become an assertive adult.G. Many people have difficulty saying "no" to requests or demands. Assertiveness training provides an antidote to fear, shyness, passivity and—ironically even anger, so there is a wide range of situations in which this training can be helpful.

Globally, recovery is going slightly better than expected, according to the IMF, which released its latest World Economic Outlook today. After shrinking by 0.6% last year, the global economy is likely to expand by 4.2% in 2010, 0.3% faster than the IMF projected in January. But economic performances will continue to vary widely around the world. Much of the upward revision to global growth can be attributed to a better outlook for the American economy. The IMF revised its forecast for American economic expansion in 2010 up 0.4%, to 3.1%. There was no change, by contrast, for the euro area, which already faced a poorer growth outlook. The Euro area economy may only grow by 1% in 2010 and 1.5% in 2011. And much of the job of expansion will be handled by Germany and France, while southern European growth continues to lag. Spain"s economy will continue to shrink in 2010. But the outlook is brightening for many emerging economies, including those in central and eastern Europe, for which growth forecasts were revised up by 0.8%. Developing Asia is enjoying a strong recovery, and the IMF indicated that both India and Brazil are likely to perform much better this year than initially anticipated, notching (赢得) growth rates of 8.8% and 5.5%, respectively. The report suggested that planned stimulus measures for 2010 should be fully implemented, given the fragility of recovery, but it also noted that sovereign debt worries will become more severe as the year progresses. Debt issues are likely to prove especially problematic in Europe, which has the highest debt ratios and the slowest expected growth rates. The stressed southern European nations are in a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don"t position. If little action is taken on debt, rising debt costs will choke of an already weak recovery. If aggressive action is taken, the blow to aggregate demand will likewise undermine growth. Around the world, trade and production have recovered strongly, but employment remains well below prerecession levels in most countries. Labour market weakness is helping to keep inflation expectations in check; the IMF forecasts consumer price increases in developed nations of 1.5% in 2010 and 1.4% in 2011. But the return to strong growth is boosting commodity prices once more. Oil prices may increase by 30% in 2010, said the IMF, a rise 7% larger than projected in January. The overall picture is of a remarkable turnaround in global fortunes, given the depth of the recession. The year"s performance is much better than many would have dared to hope early last year. But in parts of Europe, the future is somewhat less certain, and because that uncertain future could lead to sovereign debt crises that could potentially rattle financial markets, world leaders should remain vigilant.

Many countries have a tradition of inviting foreigners to rule them. The English called in William of Orange in 1688, and, depending on your interpretation of history, William of Normandy in 1066. Both did rather a good job. Returning the compliment, Albania asked a well-bred Englishman called Aubrey Herbert to be their king in the 1920s. He refused—and they ended up with several coves called Zog. America, the country of immigrants, has no truck with imported foreign talent. Article two of the constitution says that "no person except a natural-born citizen.., shall be eligible to the office of the president". This is now being challenged by a particularly irresistible immigrant: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Barely a year has passed since the erstwhile cyborg swept to victory in California"s recall election, yet there is already an Amend-for-Arnold campaign collecting signatures to let the Austrian-born governor have a go at the White House. George Bush senior has weighed in on his behalf. There are several "Arnold amendments" in Congress: one allows foreigners who have been naturalized citizens for 20 years to become president. (The Austrian became American in 1983.) It is easy to dismiss the hoopla as another regrettable example of loopy celebrity politics. Mr. Schwarzenegger has made a decent start as governor, but he bas done little, as yet, to change the structure of his dysfunctional state. Indeed, even if the law were changed, he could well be elbowed aside by another incomer, this time from Canada: the Democratic governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, who appears to have fewer skeletons in her closet than the hedonistic actor. Moreover, changing the American constitution is no doddle. It has happened only 17 times since 1791 (when the first ten amendments were codified as the bill of rights). To change the constitution, an amendment has to be approved by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, and then to be ratified by three-quarters of the 50 states. The Arnold amendment is hardly in the same category as abolishing slavery or giving women the vote. And, as some wags point out, Austrian imports have a pretty dodgy record of running military superpowers.

Those who welcomed the railway saw it as more than a rapid and comfortable means of passing. They actually saw it as a factor in world peace. They did not foresee that the railway would be just one more means for the rapid movement of aggressive armies. None of them foresaw that the more we are together—the more chances there are of war. Any boy or girl who is one of a large family knows that. Whenever any new invention is put forward, those for it and those against it can always find medical men to approve or condemn. The anti-railway group produced doctors who said that tunnels would be most dangerous to public health: they would produce colds, catarrhs(黏膜炎) and consumptions. The deafening noise and the glare of the engine fire, would have a bad effect on the nerves. Further, being moved through the air at a high speed would do grave injury to delicate lungs. In those with high blood pressure, the movement of the train might produce apoplexy. The sudden plunging of a train into the darkness of a tunnel, and the equally sudden rush into full daylight, would cause great damage to eyesight. But the pro-railway group was of course able to produce equally famous medical men to say just the opposite. They said that the speed and swing of the train would equalize the circulation, promote digestion, tranquilize the nerves, and ensure good sleep. The actual rolling-stock was anything but comfortable. If it was a test of endurance to sit for four hours outside a coach in rain, or inside in dirty air, the railway offered little more in the way of comfort. Certainly the first-class carriages had cushioned seats; but the second-class had only narrow bare boards, while the third-class had nothing at all; no seats and no roof; they were just open trucks. So that third-class passengers gained nothing from the few mode except speed. In the matter of comfort, indeed they lost; they did, on the coaches, have a seat, but now they had to stand all the way, which gave opportunities to the comic press. This kind of thing: "A man was seen yesterday buying a third-class ticket for the new London and Birmingham Railway. The state of his mind is being enquired into". A writer in the early days of railways wrote feelingly of both second-and third-class carriages. He made the suggestion that the directors of the railways must have sent all over the world to find the hardest possible wood. Of the open third-class trucks he said that they had the peculiar property of meeting the rain from whatever quarter it came. He described them as horizontal shower-baths, from whose searching power there was no escape.