young and old

On Flash Marriage A. Title: On Flash Marriage B. Word limit: 160-200 words (not including the given opening sentence) C. Your composition should be based on the OUTLINE below and should start with the given opening sentence: "As the pace of life nowadays is increasingly fast, flash marriage has also become a tendency." OUTLINE: 1. The problem of flash marriage 2. My opinion 3. Making a conclusion

Thomas Hardy"s impulses as a writer, all of which indulged in his novels, were numerous and divergent, and they did not always work together in harmony. Hardy was to some degree interested in exploring his characters" psychologies, though impelled less by curiosity than by sympathy. Occasionally he felt the impulse to comedy (in all its detached coldness) as well as the impulse to farce, but he was more often inclined to see tragedy and record it. He was also inclined to literary realism in the several senses of that phrase; He wanted to describe ordinary human beings. He wanted to speculate on their dilemmas rationally (and, unfortunately even schematically); and he wanted to record precisely the material universe. Finally, he wanted to be more than a realist. He wanted to transcend what he considered to be the banality of solely recording things exactly and to express as well his awareness of the occult and the strange. In his novels these various impulses were sacrificed to each other inevitably and often inevitably, because Hardy did not care in the way that novelists such as Flaubert or James learned, and therefore took paths of least resistance. Thus one impulse often surrendered to a fresher one and, unfortunately, instead of exacting a compromise, simply disappeared. A desire to throw over reality a light that never was might give way abruptly to the desire on the part of what we might consider a novelist scientist to record exactly and concretely the structure and texture of a flower. In this instance, the new impulse was at least an energetic one. And thus its indulgence did not result in a relaxed style. But on other occasions Hardy abandoned a perilous risky and highly energizing impulse in favor of what was for him the fatally relaxing impulse to classify and schematize abstractly. When a relaxing impulse was indulged, the style—that sure index of an author"s literary worth—was certain to become verbose. Hardy"s weakness derived from his apparent inability to control the comings and goings of these divergent impulses and from his unwillingness to cultivate and sustain the energetic and risky ones. He submitted of first one and then another, and the spirit blew where it listed; hence the unevenness of any one of his novels. His most controlled novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, prominently exhibits two different but reconcilable impulses—a desire to be a realist-historian and a desire to be a psychologist of love but the slight interlockings of plot are not enough to bind the two completely together. Thus even this book splits into two distinct parts.

[A]Breaking all constraints [B]Timeline to execution [C]The purpose of the decision [D]Known unknowns and unknown unknowns [E]Wrong is never permanent [F]Resource accessibility [G]Playing to self-interest Leadership in any capacity requires a laser-like focus, complete awareness of the problem set, and a willingness to "move the needle" when faced with uncertainty. Leaders must, at any point, be willing to make a split-second decision with potentially long-lasting and profound impacts. Here are five criteria to consider when making your next big decision: 【C1】______ In the military, there was(and still is)a pecking order of priority upon which decisions are based. The mission always came first, followed by what would serve the team, and finally, what would serve the individual. The individual always comes last because he or she was always the smallest link in the organization al chain. Playing to self-interest serves little purpose, and that's not what a team or an organization is about. 【C2】______ Well, "never" is a strong word, but you get the idea. I' ve said before that failure is only determined by where you choose to stop, and it also depends on how that particular problem is perceived. The higher one ascends within an organization. For example, the same problem that appears tricky at one level may not necessarily be the right one to solve for at another. Seek as many viewpoints as you can to enhance your understanding of the situation. 【C3】______ There are internal and external influences that shape the feasibility of execution along a given timeline. Internal influences refer to the competency of you and your team to execute the decision in the given time, whereas external influences signify the driving forces that impact the deadline that you have no control over, such as weather, the economy or market demand. You want to ask yourself two questions. First, "Is now the right time to decide?" If the answer is yes, then your next question is, "Am I capable of executing the decision?" If the answer is no then ask "why?" 【C4】______ These are the constraints surrounding the execution of your decisions. A known unknown is when you realize a specific intangible exists but can't quantify how much, such as traffic. For instance, you're aware that rush hour in Los Angeles never really has an end point, so it could take you from 20 minutes to two hours to travel from A to B. The point is, you know that uncertainty exists but don't know how much. Unknown unknowns are when Murphy likes to throw another wrench in the mix that you simply can't plan for, such as a vehicle accident or engine breakdown. Try to identify all constraints as best you can so you know how to align them towards the purpose of your decision. 【C5】______ If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. The result of any effort will depend in part on the resources used to execute it, so be sure to identify not only the primary resources available but also secondary ones, too. Every decision should have a contingency plan for when those unknown unknowns arise and deem your primary course of action obsolete. Decision-making can paralyze you if you're not prepared. Tackle your next major dilemma using the aforementioned considerations and feel better about the decisions you come to.

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) This is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most of the world. The symbol is not the dollar. It is not even Coca-Cola. It is a simple pair of pants called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocqueville called "a manly and legitimate passion for equality". Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and cowboys; bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers. They draw no distinctions and recognize no classes; they are merely American. (41)______. This ubiquitous American symbol was the invention of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name was Levi Strauss. He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany, in 1829, and during the European political turmoil of 1848 decided to take his chances in New York, to which his two brothers already had emigrated. Upon arrival, Levi soon found that his two brothers had exaggerated their tales of an easy life in the land of the main chance. He found them pushing needles, thread, pots, pans, ribbons, yarn, scissors and buttons to housewives. (42)______. It was the wrong kind of canvas for that purpose, but while talking with a miner down from the mother lode, he learned that pants-sturdy pants that would stand up to the rigors of the digging—were almost impossible to find. Opportunity beckoned on the spot, Strauss measured the man"s girth and inseam with a piece of string and, for six dollars in gold dust, had [the canvas] tailored into a pair of stiff but rugged pants. (43)______. When Strauss ran out of canvas, he wrote his two brothers to send more. He received instead a tough, brown cotton cloth made in Nimes, France. Almost from the first, Strauss had his cloth dyed the distinctive indigo that gave blue jeans their name, but it was not until the 1870s that he added the copper rivets which have long since become a company trademark. (44)______. For three decades thereafter the business remained profitable though small, with sales largely confined to the working people of the West-cowboys, lumberjacks, railroad workers, and the like. Levi"s jeans were first introduced to the East, apparently, during the dude-ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned and spread the word about the wonderful pants with rivets. (45)______. The pants have become a tradition, and along the way have acquired a history of their own so much so that the company has opened a museum in San Francisco. For example, there is the particularly terrifying story of the careless construction worker who dangled fifty-two stories above the street until rescued, his sole support the Levi"s belt loop through which his rope was hooked.A. The miner was delighted with the result, word got around about "those pants of Levi"s", and Strauss was in business. The company has been in business very since.B. As a kind of joke, Davis took the pants to a blacksmith and had the pockets riveted; once again, the idea worked so well that word got around; in 1873 Strauss appropriated and patented the gimmick—and hired Davis as a regional manager.C. By this time, Strauss had taken both his brothers and two brothers-in-law into the company and was ready for his third San Francisco store. Over the ensuing years the company prospered locally, and by the time of his death in 1902, Strauss had become a man of prominence in California.D. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling some 180 pounds of sundries door-to-door to eke out a marginal living. When a married sister in San Francisco offered to pay his way West in 1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for tenting.E. Another boost came in World War II, when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and were sold only to people engaged in defense work. From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants, and almost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to include a sales force of more than twenty-two thousand, with plants and offices in thirty-five countries.F. They adapt themselves to any sort of idiosyncratic use; women slit them at the inseams and convert them into long skirts, men chop them off above the knees and turn them into something to be worn while challenging the surf. Decorations and ornamentations abound.G. Yet they are sought after almost everywhere in the world-including Russia, where authorities recently broke up a teen-aged gang that was selling them on the black market for two hundred dollars a pair.

A Welcome E-mail Some international students are coming to your university. Write them an e-mail in the name of the Students' Union to extend your welcome and provide some suggestions for their campus life here. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Suppose you are Li Ming. You learn that there is a job vacancy in an electronic appliances company. You want to apply for the job as a sales representative. You write a letter to the company"s human resources manager. Your letter should include the following points: 1) the reasons for writing (including how you found out about the job) 2) some accounts of your qualifications 3) and the way you can be reached You should write about 100 words and do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1.describethedrawingbriefly,2.explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3.supportyourviewwithanexample/examples.YoushouldwriteneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(20points)

Some historians say that the most important contribution of Dwight Eisenhower's presidency in the 1950s was the U.S. interstate highway system. It was a【B1】______project, easily surpassing the scale of such previous human 【B2】______ as the Panama Canal. Eisenhower's interstate highways 【B3】______ the nation together in new ways and【B4】______major economic growth by making commerce less 【B5】______. Today, an information superhighway has been built—an electronic network that【B6】______libraries, corporations, government agencies and 【B7】______. This electronic superhighway is called the Internet, 【B8】______ it is the backbone of the World Wide Web. The Internet had its【B9】______in a 1643 U.S. Defense Department computer network called ARPA net, which【B10】______Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The Pentagon built the network for military contractors and universities doing military research to【B11】______information. In 1662 the National Science Foundation (NSF),【B12】______mission is to promote science, took over. This new NSF network【B13】______more and more institutional users, many of【B14】______had their own internal networks. For example, most universities that【B15】______the NSF network had intercampus computer networks. The NSF network【B16】______became a connector for thousands of other networks.【B17】______a backbone system that interconnects networks, internet was a name that fit. So we can see that the Internet is the wired infrastructure on which web【B18】______move. It began as a military communication system, which expanded into a government-funded【B19】______research network. Today, the Internet is a user-financed system tying institutions of many sorts together【B20】______an "information superhighway".

Euthanasia as a legal question is an exercise in futility. A government of the people cannot sanction the right to choose death. Nor can the government prevent it. Legislators can create laws that prohibit or allow euthanasia or assisted suicide. The laws can be supported by social mores, collective conscience, individual rights. The judicial system can incarcerate those who assist the terminally ill in suicide, but it cannot imprison those who have been released from their pain, their suffering. To the terminally ill, to those whose pain has become unbearable, to those whose bodies arc withered and decayed beyond repair, any law is irrelevant. To those who care for the terminally ill the pain and suffering are not a legal matter. To watch someone die, someone you love, is a form of death itself. To hear them beg for relief, for release, and to be unable to provide it is psychically debilitating. You are forever changed. And to you, watching your loved one endure sufferings beyond human capacity, laws become irrelevant as well. The question of euthanasia as a moral or legal matter will not be resolved through debate and legislation. No religious dogma or social commentary can encompass the broad spectrum of external and internal events included in the experience and witnessing of physical and mental deterioration. Each person experiences pain and suffering in a different way. No law can ever define unbearable pain. No law can ever define the parameters of quality of living. The quality of life is no longer the question; life as the victim knows it is long gone. For those whose lives are irrevocably changed, and certain to cease, quality is now a matter of what lies beyond this realm. To determine the quality of one"s death is not a question for lawmakers, for social pundits, for clergy. It is a question for the individual. No one person can determine for another if the quality of his existence is now beyond the confines of this world. There is always the fear of the slippery slope in the question of euthanasia. Just when can you give that loved one the overdose of morphine? At what point, after the diagnosis of certain death, do you say to yourself, "I do not want to go any further; I cannot face the inevitable pain of physical ruin"? This slippery slope is just another reason why no law can ever suffice, because the answers to the questions above will never be the same from one event to the next.

In 1924 America"s National Research Council sent two engineers to supervise a series of experiments at a telephone-parts factory called the Hawthorne Plant near Chicago. It hoped they would learn how shop-floor lighting 【B1】 workers" productivity. Instead, the studies ended 【B2】 giving their name to the " Hawthorne effect, " the extremely influential idea that the very 【B3】 of being experimented upon changed subjects" behavior. The idea arose because of the 【B4】 behavior of the women in the plant. According to 【B5】 of the experiments, their hourly output rose when lighting was increased, but also when it was dimmed. It did not 【B6】 what was done in the experiment; 【B7】 something was changed, productivity rose. A(n) 【B8】 that they were being experimented upon seemed to be 【B9】 to alter workers" behavior 【B10】 itself. After several decades, the same data were 【B11】 to econometric analysis. The Hawthorne experiments had another surprise in store. 【B12】 the descriptions on record, no systematic 【B13】 was found that levels of productivity were related to changes in lighting. It turns out that the peculiar way of conducting the experiments may have led to 【B14】 interpretations of what happened. 【B15】 , lighting was always changed on a Sunday. When work started again on Monday, output 【B16】 rose compared with the previous Saturday and 【B17】 to rise for the next couple of days. 【B18】, a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Mondays. Workers 【B19】 to be diligent for the first few days of the week in any case, before 【B20】 a plateau and then slackening off. This suggests that the alleged "Hawthorne effect" is hard to pin down.

Write a letter to Mr. Terry Thompson , recommending a Chinese university for him to study in China.You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2.Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" instead.Do not write the address. (10 points)

【F1】 Material culture refers to the touchable, material "things —physical objects that can be seen, held, felt, used—that a culture produces. Examining a culture's tools and technology can tell us about the group's history and way of life. Similarly, research into the material culture of music can help us to understand the music-culture. The most vivid body of "things" in it, of course, are musical instruments.【F2】 We cannot hear for ourselves the actual sound of any musical performance before the 1870s when the phonograph was invented, so we rely on instruments for important information about music-cultures in the remote past and their development. Here we have two kinds of evidence: instruments well preserved and instruments pictured in art. Through the study of instruments, as well as paintings, written documents, and so on, we can explore the movement of music from the Near East to China over a thousand years ago, or we can outline the spread of Near Eastern influence to Europe that resulted in the development of most of the instruments on the symphony orchestra. Sheet music or printed music, too, is material culture. Scholars once defined folk music-cultures as those in which people learn and sing music by ear rather than from print, but research shows mutual influence among oral and written sources during the past few centuries in Europe, Britain and America. Printed versions limit variety because they tend to standardize any song, yet they stimulate people to create new and different songs.【F3】 Besides, the ability to read music notation has a far-reaching effect on musicians and, when it becomes widespread, on the music-culture as a whole. Music is deep-rooted in the cultural background that fosters it. We now pay more and more attention to traditional or ethnic features in folk music and are willing to preserve the folk music as we do with many traditional cultural heritage. Musicians all over the world are busy with recording classic music in their country for the sake of their unique culture.【F4】 As always, people's aspiration will always focus on their individuality rather than universal features that are shared by all cultures alike. 【F5】 One more important part of music's material culture should be singled out: the influence of the electronic media—radio, record player, tape recorder, and television, with the future promising talking and singing computers and other developments. This is all part of the "information-revolution", a twentieth century phenomenon as important as the industrial revolution in the nineteenth. These electronic media are not just limited to modern nations; they have affected music-cultures all over the globe.

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

Like every dog, every disease now seems to have its day. World Tuberculosis (infections disease in which growths appear on the lungs) Day is on Saturday March 24th. Tuberculosis was once terribly fashionable. Dying of "consumption" seems to have been a favorite activity of garret-dwelling 19th-century artists, h has, however, been neglected of late. Researchers in the field never tire of pointing out that TB kills a lot of people. According to figures released earlier this week by the World Health Organization, 1.6 million people died of the disease in 2005, compared with about 3m for AIDS and I"m for malaria. But it receives only a fraction of the research budget devoted to AIDS. America"s National Institutes of Health, for example, spends 20 times as much on AIDS as on TB. Nevertheless, everyone seems to getting in on the TB-day act this year. The Global Fund an international organization responsible fur fighting all three diseases but best known for its work on AIDS, has used the occasion to trumpet its tuberculosis projects. The fund claims that its anti-TB activities since it opened for business in 2002 have saved the lives of over 1m people. The World Health Organization has issued a report that contains some good news. Although the number of TB cases is still rising, the rate of illness seems to have stabilized; the caseload, in other words, is growing only because the population itself is going up. Even drug companies are involved. In the nm-up to the day itself, Eli Lilly announced a $50m boost to its MDRTB Global Partnership. MDR stands for multi-drug resistance, and it is one of the reasons why TB is back in the limelight. Careless treatment has caused drug-resistant strains to evolve all over the world. The course of drugs needed to clear the disease completely takes six mouths, anti persuading people lo stay that course once their symptoms have gone is hard. Unfortunately, those infected with MDR have to be treated with less effective, more poisonous and more costly drugs. Naturally, these provoke still more. non-compliance and thus still more evolution. The other reason TB is back is its relationship to AIDS. The (global Fund"s joint responsibility for the diseases is no coincidence. AIDS does not kill directly. Rather, HIV, the virus that causes it, weakens the body"s immune system and exposes the sufferer to secondary infections. Of these, TB is one of the most serious. It kills 200,000 AIDS patients a year. However, some anti-TB drugs interfere with the effect of some anti-HIV drugs. Conversely, in about 20% of cases where a patient has both diseases, anti-HIV drugs make the tuberculosis worse. The upshot is that 125 years after human beings worked out what caused TB, it is still a serious threat.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

Suggestions for the Use of Plastic Bags Restrictions on the use of plastic bags have not been so successful in some regions. "White pollution" is still going on. Write a letter to the editor (s) of your local newspaper to give your opinions briefly, and make two or three suggestions. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

In a lab in Oxford University"s experimental psychology department, researcher Roi Cohen Ka-dosh is testing a relatively new brain-stimulation technique which may help people learn and improve their understanding of math concepts. The electrodes(a small piece of metal or other substance that is used to take an electric current)are【C1】______in a tightly fitted cap and worn around the head. The device, run off a 9-volt battery commonly used in smoke detectors, induces only a【C2】______current and can be targeted to【C3】______areas of the brain or applied generally. The mild current reduces the【C4】______of side effects, which has【C5】______possibilities about using it, even in individuals【C6】______a disorder, as a general cognitive【C7】______. Scientists also are investigating its use to treat mood disorders and【C8】______conditions. Dr. Cohen Kadosh"s【C9】______work on learning enhancement and brain stimulation is one example of the long journey faced by scientists【C10】______brain-stimulation and cognitive-stimulation techniques.【C11】______other researchers in the community, he has dealt with public【C12】______about safety and side effects, plus【C13】______from other scientists about whether these findings would hold in the wider population. There are also ethical questions about the technique.【C14】______it truly works to enhance cognitive performance, should it be【C15】______to anyone who can afford to buy the device—which already is【C16】______for sale in the U.S.? Should parents be able to perform such stimulation on their kids without【C17】______? "It"s early days but that hasn"t stopped some companies from【C18】______the device and marketing it as a learning tool," Dr. Cohen Kadosh says. "Be very【C19】______." However, if the technique continues to show【C20】______, "this type of method may have a chance to be the new drug of the 21st century," says Dr. Cohen Kadosh.

That is the reason why I am not in favour of revising the plan.

OnDrunkDrivingWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.