In the United States, the first day-nursery was opened in 1854.@Nurseries were established in various areas during the (1)_____ half of the 19th century; most of them were (2)_____ Both in Europe and in the U. S., the day-nursery (3)_____ received great (4)_____ during the First World War, when (5)_____ of manpower caused the industrial employment (6)_____ numbers of women. In some European countries nurseries were established (7)_____ in munitions (军火)plants, under direct government (8)_____ Although the number of nurseries in the U. S. also rose (9)_____, this rise was accomplished without government aid of any kind. During the years following the First World War, (10)_____, Federal, State, and local governments gradually began to exercise a measure of control over the day-nurseries, chiefly by (11)_____ them and by inspecting and regulating the conditions within the nurseries. The (12)_____ of the Second World War was quickly followed by an increase in the number of day-nurseries in almost all countries, as women were again called upon to replace men in the factories. On this (13)_____ the U.S. government immediately came to the support of the nursery school, (14)_____ $6,000,000 in July, 1942, for a nursery school program for the children of working mothers. Many States and local communities (15)_____ this Federal aid. By the end of the war, in August, 1945, more than 100,000 children were being cared for in day-care centers receiving Federal (16)_____. Soon afterward, the Federal government (17)_____ cut down its (18)_____ for this purpose and later (19)_____ them, causing a sharp drop in the number of nursery schools in operation. However, the (20)_____ that most employed mothers would leave their jobs at the end of the war was only partly fulfilled.

Suppose you are the manager of a company, plan to send some staff to the abroad for training to meet the needs of your company"s development. Write a memo to the relevant departments asking for the employees" names they recommend. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

If sustainable competitive advantage depends on workforce skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally seen as 【B1】______ to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Labour is simply another factor of production to be hired or【B2】______at the lowest possible cost— much 【B3】______ one buys raw materials or equipment. The lack of importance 【B4】______ to human-resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second 【B5】______ command. The 【B6】______ of head of human-resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who 【B7】______ it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to 【B8】______ to Chief Executive Officer (CEO).【B9】______, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central—usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm' s【B10】______. As a【B11】______, problems【B12】______when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn【B13】______to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is【B14】______in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for【B15】______retraining【B16】______costs and creates bottlenecks that【B17】______the speed with【B18】______new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological【B19】______. And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population【B20】______the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can't effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.

Suppose your cousin Zhang Wei has just been admitted to a university. Write him/her a letter to 1) congratulate him/her, and 2) give him/her suggestions on how to get prepared for university life. 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 your address. (10 points)

President Bush takes to the bully pulpit to deliver a stern lecture to America"s business elite. The Justice Dept. stuns the accounting profession by filing a criminal indictment of Arthur Andersen LLP for destroying documents related to its audits of Enron Corp. On Capitol Hill, some congressional panels push on with biased hearings on Enron"s collapse and, now, another busted New Economy star, telecom"s Global Crossing. Lawmakers sign on to new bills aimed at tightening oversight of everything from pensions and accounting to executive pay. To any spectators, it would be easy to conclude that the winds of change are sweeping Corporate America, led by George W. Bush, who ran as "a reformer with result". But far from deconstructing the corporate world brick by brick into something cleaner, sparer, and stronger, Bush aides and many legislators are preparing modest legislative and administrative reforms. Instead of an overhaul, Bushes team is counting on its enforcers, Justice and a newly empowered Securities & Exchange Commission, to make examples of the most egregious offenders. The idea is that business will quickly get the message and clean up its own act. Why won"t the outraged rhetoric result in more changes? For starters, the Bush Administration warns that any rush to legislate corporate behavior could produce a raft of flawed bills that raise costs without halting abuses. Business has striven to drive the point home with an intense lobbying blitz that has convinced many lawmakers that over-regulation could startle the stock market and perhaps endanger the nascent economic recovery. All this sets the stage for Washington to get busy with predictably modest results. A surge of caution is sweeping would-be reformers on the Hill. "They know they don"t want to make a big mistake," says Jerry J. Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. That go-slow approach suits the White House. Aides say the President, while personally disgusted by Enron"s sellout of its pensioners, is reluctant to embrace new sanctions that frustrate even law-abiding corporations and create a litigation bonanza for trial lawyers. Instead, the White House will push for narrowly targeted action, most of it carried out by the SEC, the Treasury Dept., and the Labor Dept. The right outcome, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O"Neill said on Mar. 15th, "depends on the Congress not legislating things that are over the top." To O"Neill and Bush, that means enforcing current laws before passing too many new ones. Nowhere is that stance clearer than in the Andersen indictment. So the Bush Administration left the decision to Justice Dept. prosecutors rather than White House political operatives or their reformist fellows at the SEC.

An Invitation for Joint Research Write an e-mail of about 100 words based on the following situation: Professor Chen is going to spend one year away from his institution to pursue research in atmospheric science. You want to invite him to join your research group. You can offer him some facilities. Do not sign your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use "Professor Li" instead. Do not write the address.

OnProtectingOurForestsWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

Their defenders say they are motivated, versatile workers who are just what companies need in these difficult times. To others, however, the members of "Generation Y"—those born in the 1980s and 1990s, otherwise known as the Net Generation—are spoiled, narcissistic idlers who cannot spell and waste too much time on instant messaging and Facebook. Ah, reply the Net Geners, but all that messing around online proves that we are computer-literate multi-taskers who are adept users of online collaborative tools, and natural team players. And, while you are on the subject of me, I need a month"s vacation to reconsider my personal goals. This culture clash has been going on in many organizations and has lately seeped into management books. The Net Geners have grown up with computers; they are brimming with self-confidence; and they have been encouraged to challenge received wisdom, to find their own solutions to problems and to treat work as a route to personal fulfillment rather than merely a way of putting food on the table. Not all of this makes them easy to manage. Bosses complain that after a childhood of being spoiled and praised, Net Geners demand far more frequent feedback and an over-precise set of objectives on the path to promotion. In a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy, 61% of chief executives say they have trouble recruiting and integrating younger employees. For those hard-to-please older managers, the current recession is the joyful equivalent of hiding an alarm clock in a sleeping teenager"s bedroom. Once again, the touchy-feely management fads that always spring up in years of plenty are being ditched in favor of more brutal command-and-control methods. Having grown up in good times, Net Geners have labored under the illusion that the world owed them a living. But hopping between jobs to find one that meets your inner spiritual needs is not so easy when there are no jobs to hop to. And as for that vacation: here"s a permanent one, sunshine. In fact, compromise will be necessary on both sides. Net Geners will certainly have to lower some of their expectations and take the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. But their older bosses should also be prepared to make concessions. The economy will eventually recover, and demographic trends in most rich countries will make clever young workers even more valuable. Besides, many of the things that keep Net Geners happy are worth doing anyway. But for the moment at least, the Facebook-ers are under heavy criticism.

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 mystery involves a change in the atmosphere—a hole, or thinning, of the ozone in the atmosphere over Antarctica. Scientists were not sure what was causing it. (42)______. It is found both in the air we breathe and in the upper atmosphere. Near the earth, ozone in the air is a danger to life. It is a pollutant. But ozone found 10 kilometers to 50 kilometers up in the atmosphere protects life on earth. Ozone forms in the atmosphere through the action of solar radiation. Once formed, the ozone blocks harmful radiation from reaching the earth. Scientists say a decrease in ozone and an increase in the harmful radiation will cause many more cases of skin cancer and will harm crops, animals and fish. (43)______. Chlorine is released into the air from the chlorofluorocarbons—or CFCs—used in plastic, air conditioners and spray cans. The use of CFCs has greatly increased worldwide since 1960 and is continuing to increase. The destruction of the ozone in the atmosphere also has increased. An international effort is being made to halt the loss of atmospheric ozone. But many experts fear the effort will not produce results fast enough to prevent harm to life on earth. Thirty-one nations negotiated a treaty last year (1987) calling for a reduction in the worldwide production of chlorofluorocarbons. It was praised at the time as a major step in halting further destruction of the ozone. Cuts in the present production of CFCs will begin in the mid-1990s. (44)______. Harmful chemicals take from 7 to 10 years to rise up into the atmosphere. Damage from the increase use of CFCs in this past decade still has not been felt. Government scientists say more than two times the mount of these gases will be in the atmosphere before the levels stop rising. (45)______. Scientists point out a molecule of chlorine remains in the atmosphere for as long as 100 years. During that time, it destroys tens of thousands of ozone molecules.A. Why has the ozone problem developed? No one knows for sure. But scientists say the evidence is very strong that the chlorine in chlorofluorocarbons(含氯氟烃) is causing much of the problem.B. Almost 30 years after scientists discovered that common industrial gases were destroying Earth"s protective ozone layer, satellite readings and ground observations show for the first time that the dangerous rate of ozone loss is finally slowing.C. Ozone is a three-atom form of oxygen gas.D. There have been some new developments in a continuing mystery we have reported about many times.E. Scientists also say damage to ozone will continue because of the long life of the chemical gases released into the atmosphere.F. The ozone problem caused by CFCs was first noticed as early as the 1960s.G. However, most scientists now agree destruction of the ozone will continue for decades. They say this will happen even though industries and governments do their best to control the damage.

A.Studythefollowinggraphscarefullyandwriteanessayinatleast150words.B.YouressaymustbewrittenneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(15points)C.Youressayshouldcoverthreepoints;1.effectofthecountry"sgrowinghumanpopulationsonitswildlife;2.possiblereasonsfortheeffect;3.yoursuggestionforwildlifeprotection.

All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility than the members of any other profession—with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America. During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare. There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subject, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today"s average law-school graduate with $ 100, 000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work fearsomely hard. Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies mat govern the profession have been too conservative to implement them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a stern enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically. In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms" efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.

Electronic or "cyber" warfare holds the promise of destroying an army"s-or even a whole nation"s ability to function without hurting human life. The technology is reaching the point, however, where cyber warfare may be decisive in its own right. (46) In highly centralized military operations, communications and data management have become essential tools linking individual small units and the central command structure. The neutron bomb is one of the most horrid weapons ever devised: It doesn"t damage property; it only kills higher life-forms. (47) Wouldn"t the opposite be wonderful, a device like the robot"s ray in The Day the Earth Stood Stills which melts down weapons but not soldiers? Electronic or "cyber" warfare—hacking into an enemy"s computers, jamming radio transmissions, and the like. The United States has very good electronic warfare capabilities, but has used them only to support conventional military operations. (48) Before we imagine what such a "cyberwar" scenario might be like, let"s briefly look at how electronic warfare developed. During the Civil War, operations conducted by the Union army against the Confederate telegraph system foretold modern twentieth-century electronic warfare. Union operatives penetrated Confederate lines to tap into and read military traffic on the Confederate telegraph system. (49) Not only did these operations yield valuable intelligence information, but some operators even began sending bogus messages to sow confusion in the Confederate ranks. Just before World War I, radio communication seemed like a real boon to naval operations because it allowed ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications, especially in bad weather. Before this time, flags or light blinkers with limited range provided the only means of communication between ships. Naval ship captains, however, were aware that a sophisticated set of shore-based equipment could locate ships by their radio transmission. By listening to the transmissions, the enemy could ascertain the number and type of ships even if they could not decode actual messages. For this reason, the U.S. Navy was particularly resistant to using radio. However, U.S. military observers aboard British warships soon saw that the tactical advantages of radio outweighed the intelligence losses. Electronic warfare grew rapidly in World War II with the advent of radar. (50) Monitoring radar frequencies allowed spoofing or jamming of enemy radar and led to major units and equipment devoted solely to countermeasures and counter-countermeasures. Gathering intelligence from radio transmissions also increased greatly. Today, every modem nation has the capability to monitor, jam, or otherwise interfere with an adversary"s radio communications. Most nations have also developed jam-resistant communications and intelligence-gathering equipment.

Smoking, which may be a pleasure for some people, is a serious source of discomfort to their fellows. (1)_____, medical authorities ex press their (2)_____ about the effect of smoking (3)_____ the health not only (4)_____ those who smoke but also of those who do not. In fact, non smokers who must (5)_____ inhale the air polluted by tobacco smoke may (6)_____ more than the smokers themselves. As you aye doubtless, (7)_____, a considerable number of our students have (8)_____ in effort to (9)_____ the university to ban smoking in the classroom. I believe they are (10)_____ right in their aim. (11)_____ I would hope that it is (12)_____ to achieve this by (13)_____ on the smokers to use good judgment and show concern (14)_____ others rather than regulation. Smoking is (15)_____ by law in theater and in halls used for (16)_____ films as well as in laboratories where there (17)_____ be a fire hazard. Elsewhere, it is up to your good sense. I am (18)_____ asking you to maintain (19)_____ in the auditoriums, classrooms and seminar rooms. This will prove that you have the nonsmokers health and well-being in (20)_____, which is very important to a large number of our students.

Can anyone compete with Microsoft in the world of software applications? For years now, Bill Gates it was unabashedly for-profit and was closed-source. But Kapor always had his heart in the counterculture, and after leaving his company he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a cyber-rights organization. Though he has seen success as an investor, he feels strongly about the open-source movement, which posits that in the age of complex software many people working for nothing can duplicate or even exceed the efforts of the rake-in-the-bucks gang. And because the source code is available to all, anyone can improve the product. The continued success of the Linux-powered operating system and Apache Web servers shows that open source is no wild dream, but a serious challenge to the establishment. Sometime next year the OSAF will begin testing its first product, a personal-information manager that directly takes on Microsoft"s Outlook. Named after the famous mystery novelist, Chandler will run on Mac, Windows and Linux, be loaded with clever features and allow users to share information with others on things like calendar entries. And, of course, it will be free. Kapor has signed up an all-star team, including Lou Montulli (Netscape Navigator browser) and programming legend Andy Hertzfeld. Also participating: thousands of volunteers who believe in the barn-raising spirit of the open-source movement. Ultimately, Kapor hopes the project will be self-supporting, with money coming from corporate sponsorships, foundations and licensing fees. For the immediate future, Kapor thinks that Chandler will be simply another alternative in the shadow of the giant. But long term, the OSAF sees a sea change in the industry itself. "If Chandler works, I can"t see why we couldn"t do a word processor or a spreadsheet," says Kapor. After all, he predicts, "in 10 years Office and Windows will be commodities." Meaning that the Open Source Applications Foundation, or anyone else, will be able to plug its products—including an operating sys tem-into your computing world. Microsoft"s will cost money. The others will be free. If Kapor has his way, it"s a long good-bye for Microsoft"s dominance.

英语语言在世界上的地位 ——2017年英译汉及详解 The growth of the use of English as the world' s primary language for international commu nication has obviously been continuing for several decades.【F1】 But even as the number of English speakers expands further there are signs that the global predominance of the language may fade within the foreseeable future. Complex international, economic, technological and cultural changes could start to diminish the leading position of English as the language of the world market, and UK interests which enjoy advantage from the breadth of English usage would consequently face new pressures. Those real istic possibilities are highlighted in the study presented by David Graddol.【F2】 His analysis should therefore end any self-contentedness among those who may believe that the global position of English is so stable that the young generations of the United Kingdom do not need additional languages capabilities. David Graddol concludes that monoglot English graduates face a bleak economic future as qualified multilingual youngsters from other countries are proving to have a competitive advantage over their British counterparts in global companies and organizations. Alongside that,【F3】 many countries are introducing English into the primary-school curriculum but British school-children and students do not appear to be gaining greater encouragement to achieve fluency in other languages. If left to themselves, such trends will diminish the relative strength of the English language in international education markets as the demand for educational resource in languages, such as Spanish, Arabic or Mandarin grows and international business process outsourcing in other languages such as Japanese, French and German, spreads. 【F4】 The changes identified by David Graddol all present clear and major challenges to the UK's providers of English language teaching to people of other countries and to broader education business sectors. The English language teaching sector directly earns nearly $1.3 billion for the UK in invisible exports and our other education related exports earn up to $10 billion a year more. As the international education market expands, the recent slowdown in the numbers of international students studying in the main English-speaking countries is likely to continue, especially if there are no effective strategic policies to prevent such slippage. The anticipation of possible shifts in demand provided by this study is significant:【F5】 It gives a basis to all organisations which seek to promote the learning and use of English, a basis for planning to meet the possibilities of what could be a very different operating environment. That is a necessary and practical approach. In this as in much else, those who wish to influence the future must prepare for it.

You are going to read a list of headings and a text about Amazonia. Choose the most suitable headings. In 1942 Allan R Holmberg, a doctoral student in anthropology from Yale University, USA, ventured deep into the jungle of Bolivian Amazonia and searched out an isolated band of Siriono Indians. The researcher described the primitive society as a desperate straggle for survival, a view of Amazonia being fundamentally reconsidered today. (41)______. The Siriono, Holmberg wrote, led a "strikingly backward" existence. Their villages were little more than clusters of thatched huts. Life itself was a perpetual and punishing search for food: some families grew manioc and other starchy crops in small garden plots cleared from the forest, while other members of the tribe scoured the country for small game and promising fish holes. When local resources became depleted, the tribe moved on. As for technology, Holmberg noted, the Siriono "may be classified among the most handicapped peoples of the world". Other than bows, arrows and crude digging sticks, the only tools the Siriono.seemed to possess were "two machetes worn to the size of pocket-knives". (42)______. Although the lives of the Siriono have changed in the intervening decades, the image of them as Stone Age relics has endured. To casual observers, as well as to influential natural scientists and regional planners, the luxuriant forests of Amazonia seem ageless, unconquerable, a habitat totally hostile to human civilization. The apparent simplicity of Indian ways of life has been judged an evolutionary adaptation to forest ecology, living proof that Amazonia could not—and cannot—sustain a more complex society. Archaeological traces of far more elaborate cultures have been dismissed as the ruins of invaders from outside the region, abandoned to decay in the uncompromising tropical environment. (43)______. The popular conception of Amazonia and its native residents would be enormously consequential if it were true. But the human history of Amazonia in the past 11,000 years betrays that view as myth. Evidence gathered in recent years from anthropology and archaeology indicates that the region has sup ported a series of indigenous cultures for eleven thousand years; an extensive network of complex societies—some with populations perhaps as large as 100,000—thrived there for more than 1,000 years before the arrival of Europeans. Far from being evolutionarily retarded, prehistoric Amazonian people developed technologies and cultures that were advanced for their time. If the lives of Indians today seem "primitive", the appearance is not the result of some environmental adaptation or ecological barrier; rather it is a comparatively recent adaptation to centuries of economic and political pressure. (44)______. The evidence for a revised view of Amazonia will take many people by surprise. Ecologists have assumed that tropical ecosystems were shaped entirely by natural forces and they have focused their re search on habitats they believe have escaped human influence. But as the University of Florida ecologist, Peter Feinsinger, has noted, an approach that leaves people out of the equation is no longer ten able. The archaeological evidence shows that the natural history of Amazonia is to a surprising extent tied to the activities of its prehistoric inhabitants. (45)______. The realization comes none too soon. In June 1992 political and environmental leaders from across the world met in Rio de Janeiro to discuss how developing countries can advance their economies with out destroying their natural resources. The challenge is especially difficult in Amazonia. Because the tropical forest has been depicted as ecologically unfit for large-scale human occupation, some environ mentalists have opposed development of any kind. Ironically, one major casualty of that extreme position has been the environment itself. While policy makers struggle to define and implement appropriate legislation, development of the most destructive kind has continued apace over vast areas. The other major casualty of the "naturalism" of environmental scientists has been the indigenous Amazonians, whose habits of hunting, fishing, and slash-and-burn cultivation often have been represented as harmful to the habitat. In the clash between environmentalists and developers, the Indians have suffered the most. The new understanding of the pre-history of Amazonia, however, points to ward a middle ground. Archaeology makes clear that with judicious management selected parts of the region could support more people than anyone thought before. The long-buried past, it seems, offers hope for the future.A. Assumed inhospitableness to.social developmentB. Price paid for misconceptionsC. Evolutionary adaptation to forest ecologyD. False believes revisedE. Extreme impoverishment and backwardnessF. Ignorance of early human impact

The European Union"s Barcelona summit, which ended on March 16th, was played out against the usual backdrop of noisy "anti-globalization" demonstrations and massive security. If nothing else, the demonstrations illustrated that economic liberalization in Europe—the meeting"s main topic—presents genuine political difficulties. Influential sections of public opinion continue to oppose anything that they imagine threatens "social Europe", the ideal of a cradle-to-grave welfare state. In this climate of public opinion, it is not surprising that the outcome in Barcelona was modest. The totemic issue was opening up Europe"s energy markets. The French government has fought hard to preserve a protected market at home for its state-owned national champion, Electricite de France (EDF). At Barcelona it made a well-flagged tactical retreat. The summiteers concluded that from 2004 industrial users across Europe would be able to choose from competing energy suppliers, which should account for "at least" 60% of the market. Since Europe"s energy market is worth 350 billion ($309 billion) a year and affects just about every business, this is a breakthrough. But even the energy deal has disappointing aspects. Confining competition to business users makes it harder to show that economic liberalization is the friend rather than the foe of the ordinary person. It also allows EDF to keep its monopoly in the most profitable chunk of the French market. In other areas, especially to do with Europe"s tough labor markets, the EU is actually going backwards. The summiteers declared that "disincentives against taking up jobs" should be removed; 20m jobs should be created within the EU by 2010. But only three days after a Barcelona jamboree, the European Commission endorsed a new law that would give all temporary-agency workers the same rights as full-timers within six weeks of getting their feet under the desk. Six out of 20 commissioners did, unusually, vote against the measure—a blatant piece of re-regulation—but the social affairs commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou, was unrepentant, indeed triumphant. A dissatisfied liberaliser in the commission called the directive "an absolute disaster". The summit"s other achievements are still more fragile. Europe"s leaders promised to increase spending on "research and development" from its current figure of 1.9% of GDP a year to 3%. But how will European politicians compel businesses to invest more in research? Nobody seems to know. And the one big research project agreed on at Barcelona, the Galileo satellite-positioning system, which is supposed to cost 3.2 billion of public money, is of dubious commercial value, since the Europeans already enjoy free access to the Americans" GPA system. Edward Bannerman, head of economics at the Centre for European Reform, a Blairite think-tank, calls Galileo "the common agricultural policy in space".

Demography, which is about long term trends, may seem an unusual prism through which to view a global crisis sparked by financial sector bubbles. But those seeking a sustainable way out of the crisis would do well to take account of it. This is a crisis not only of too great expectations of asset price growth, but of too great expectations of how fast the economy of an aging world can grow, leading to massive overinvestment in everything from houses to cars. The global annual average growth of 5 percent in the five years ending in 2007 was bought at a high cost to the future, and a slowing growth in the workforce means expectations must be lowered further. Policies need to be shaped to demographic realities. Think of Japan, the world"s oldest society. Years of fiscal stimulus have had only a modest impact on growth. Infusions of yet more yen borrowed from its citizenry and from companies reluctant to reinvest their profits seem unlikely to have more than short-term impact. Japan"s workforce is declining and age is taking a toll both on innovation and the desire to spend. The only chance for global growth rates to return to previous norms is to find ways of increasing growth in those countries that have more favorable demographics. In theory, that might be Africa. Hut stability issues in many sub Saharan African countries suggest that the more realistic opportunities exist in South Asia, parts of Southeast Asia and the Middle East/ North Africa. Yet in some of the countries with potential Iran is a good example the politics is forbidding. In others, the financing tools or social infrastructure are inadequate. Still, these countries offer the most hope of compensating for demography-driven slowdowns elsewhere. A trillion or two dollars in credit for them will do more for the global economy than similar stimulus for countries with aging populations. As for aging countries, the crisis has clearly shown the need to raise retirement ages by five years to reflect increases in life spans to relieve the state budgets now weighed down by bank bailouts, and to reduce the burden on corporate and other pension schemes. In East and West alike, most people are willing and able to work longer and remain productive members of society until 70 or beyond. Few are doing so. Only a return to replacement-level fertility rates will provide a lasting solution. Meanwhile, the need for later retirement is urgent. This crisis underlines the necessity for developed country governments to adjust spending and social policies to demographic realities at home and abroad.

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

Emerging from the 1950 census is the picture of a nation developing more and more regional competition, as population growth in the Northeast and Midwest reaches a near standstill. This development-and its strong implications for US politics and economy in years ahead-has enthroned the South as America"s most densely populated region for the first time in the history of the nation"s head counting. Altogether, the US population rose in the 1970s by 23.2 million people-numerically the third largest growth ever recorded in a single decade. Even so, that gain adds up to only 11.4 percent, lowest in American annual records except for the Depression years. Americans have been migrating south and west in larger number since World War II, and the pattern still prevails. Three sun belt states—Florida, Texas and California—together had nearly 10 million more people in 1980 than a decade earlier. Among large cities, San Diego moved from 14th to 8th and San Antonio from 15th to 10th-with Cleveland and Washington D.C. dropping out of the top 10. Not all that shift can be attributed to the movement out of the snow belt, census officials say, "Nonstop waves of immigrants played a role, too—and so did bigger crops of babies as yesterday"s "baby boom" generation reached its child bearing years." Moreover, demographers see the continuing shift south and west as joined by a related but newer phenomenon: More and more, Americans apparently are looking not just for places with more jobs but with fewer people, too. Regionally, the Rocky Mountain States reported the most rapid growth rate—37.1 percent since 1970 in a vast area with only 5 percent of the US population. Among states, Nevada and Arizona grew fastest of all: 63.5 and 53.1 percent respectively. Except for Florida and Texas, the top 10 in rate of growth is composed of Western states with 7.5 million people—about 9 per square mile. The flight from over crowdedness affects the migration from Snow Belt to more bearable climates. Nowhere do 1950 census statistics dramatize more the American search for spacious living than in the Far West. There, California added 3.7 million to its population in the 1970s, more than any other state. In that decade, however, large numbers also migrated from California, mostly to other parts of the West. Often they chose—and still are choosing—somewhat colder climates such as Oregon, Idaho and Alaska in order to escape smog, crime and other plagues of urbanization in the Golden State. As a result, California"s growth rate dropped during the 1970s, to 18.5 percent—little more than two-thirds the 1960S growth figure and considerably below that of other Western states.