BPart BDirections: Write an essay of 160-200 words based on the following information./B

Twice a year, in spring and autumn, London's fashionistas go【C1】______at the second of the world's "big four" fashion weeks. From September 16th to the 21st, 68 catwalk shows【C2】______the wares of mainly British-based designers, with celebrities【C3】______attendance. A study by Oxford Economics for the British Fashion Council(BFC)found that the business【C4】______about ￡21 billion to GDP directly, twice as much as car making. High fashion【C5】______for only a fraction of that, but top-end, trend-setting design sits at the heart of the broader retail market. The BFC, which stages London Fashion Week, 【C6】______that its six days will have yielded perhaps ￡100 million in orders. More than that, fashion is【C7】______the sort of thing Britain is supposed to be good at in this post-industrial age: creative, high-value-added, cluster-based.【C8】______the country does excel. But there are characteristically British【C9】______, too. Many【C10】______have trouble【C11】______their ideas into cash. This is only partly【C12】______capital is hard to come by. "Here, it's all about【C13】______. In other places it's much【C14】______of a business, " says a Central St Martins student who has worked in France. The agent for a number of new designers【C15】______: "Young designers here just make【C16】______inspires them【C17】______thinking enough about how much they’ll have to【C18】______for it, or who will buy it." A great many fold after a few years. A big【C19】______now is to conquer developing markets【C20】______developing-world fashion houses conquer Britain. The BFC is taking designers to Hong Kong next month, and to Beijing and Shanghai next year, says Harold Tillman, its chairman.

On your way from Beijing to Paris, you lost your luggage carried by the airline. Write a complaint letter to the service center of the Airline. In your letter, you should tell them 1) what happened to your luggage, 2) what your luggage is like, 3) what compensation you expect. You should write about 100 words neatly. Do not sign your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.

A market is commonly thought of as a place where commodities are bought and sold. Thus fruit and vegetables are sold wholesale at Covent Garden Market and meat is sold wholesale at Smithfield Market. But there are markets for things other than commodities in the usual sense. (46) There are real estate markets, foreign exchange markets, labor markets, short term capital markets; and so on; there may be a market for anything that has a price. And there may be no particular place to which dealings are confined. (47) Buyers and sellers may be scattered over the whole world and instead of actually meeting together in a market place, they may deal with one another by telephone, telegram, cable or letter. Even if dealings are restricted to a particular place, the dealers may consist wholly or in part of agents acting on instructions from clients far away. Thus agents buy meat at Smithfield on behalf of retail butchers all over England; and brokers on the London Stock Exchange buy and sell securities on instructions from clients all over the world. (48) We must therefore define a market as an area over which buyers and sellers are in such close touch with one another, either directly or through dealers, that the prices obtainable in one part of the market affect the prices paid in other parts. (49) Modem means of communication are so rapid that a buyer can discover what price a seller is asking, and can accept it if he wishes, although he may be thousands of miles away. Thus the market for anything is, potentially, the whole world. But in fact things have, normally, only a local or national market. This may be because nearly the whole demand is concentrated in one locality. These special local demands, however, are of quite minor importance. (50) The main reason why many things have not a world market is that they are costly or difficult to transport.

[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: 【R1】______ 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 organizational chain. Playing to self-interest serves little purpose, and that's not what a team or an organization is about. 【R2】______ 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. 【R3】______ 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?" 【R4】______ 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. 【R5】______ 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 identity 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.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

放慢生活节奏：怎样从里到外生活得更平和、更简单 ——2016年英译汉及详解 Mental health is our birthright.【F1】 We don't have to learn how to be healthy; it is built into us in the same way that our bodies know how to heal a cut or mend a broken bone. Mental health can' t be learned, only reawakened. It is like the immune system of the body, which under stress or through lack of nutrition or exercise can be weakened, but which never leaves us. When we don't understand the value of mental health and we don't know how to gain access to it, mental health will remain hidden from us.【F2】 Our mental health doesn't really go anywhere; like the sun behind a cloud, it can be temporarily hidden from view, but it is fully capable of being restored in an instant. Mental health is the seed that contains self-esteem—confidence in ourselves and an ability to trust in our common sense. It allows us to have perspective on our lives—the ability to not take ourselves too seriously, to laugh at ourselves, to see the bigger picture, and to see that things will work out. It's a form of innate or unlearned optimism.【F3】 Mental health allows us to view others with sympathy if they are having troubles, with kindness if they are in pain, and with unconditional love no matter who they are. Mental health is the source of creativity for solving problems, resolving conflict, making our surroundings more beautiful, managing our home life, or coming up with a creative business idea or invention to make our lives easier. It gives us patience for ourselves and toward others as well as patience while driving, catching a fish, working on our car, or raising a child. It allows us to see the beauty that surrounds us each moment in nature, in culture, in the flow of our daily lives. 【F4】 Although mental health is the cure-all for living our lives, it is perfectly ordinary as you will see that it has been there to direct you through all your difficult decisions. It has been available even in the most mundane of life situations to show you right from wrong, good from bad, friend from foe. Mental health has commonly been called conscience, instinct, wisdom, common sense, or the inner voice. We think of it simply as a healthy and helpful flow of intelligent thought.【F5】 As you will come to see, knowing that mental health is always available and knowing to trust it allow us to slow down to the moment and live life happily.

Health implies. more than physical fitness. It also implies mental and emotional wellbeing. An angry, frustrated, emotionally (1)_____ person in good physical condition is not (2)_____ healthy. Mental health, therefore, has much to do (3)_____ how a person copes with the world as it exists. Many of the factors that (4)_____ physical health also affect mental and emotional well-being. Having a good self-image means that people have positive (5)_____ pictures and good positive feelings about themselves, about what they are capable (6)_____, and about the roles they play. People with good self-images like themselves, and they are (7)_____ like others. Having a good self- image is based (8)_____ a realistic (9)_____ of one"s own worth and value and capabilities. Stress is an unavoidable, necessary, and potentially healthful (10)_____ of our society. People of all ages (11)_____ stress. Children begin to (12)_____ stress during prenatal development and during childbirth. Examples of stress-inducing (13)_____ in the life of a young person are death of a pet, pressure to (14)_____ academically, the divorce of parents, or joining a new youth group. The different ways in which individuals (15)_____ to stress may bring healthful or unhealthy results. One person experiencing a great deal of stress may function exceptionally well (16)_____ another may be unable to function at all. If stressful situations are continually encountered, the individual"s physical, social, and mental health are eventually affected. Satisfying social relations are vital to (17)_____ mental and emotional health. It is believed that in order to (18)_____, develop, and maintain effective and fulfilling social relationships people must (19)_____ the ability to know and trust each other, understand each other, influence, and help each other. They must also be capable of (20)_____ conflicts in a constructive way.

Soon after his appointment as secretary-general of the United Nations in 1997, Kofi Annan lamented that he was being accused of failing to reform the world body in six weeks. "But what are you complaining about?" asked the Russian ambassador: "You"ve had more time than God." Ah, Mr. Annan quipped back, "but God had one big advantage. He worked alone without a General Assembly, a Security Council and [all] the committees." Recounting that anecdote to journalists in New York this week, Mr. Annan sought to explain why a draft declaration on UN reform and tackling world poverty, due to be endorsed by some 150 heads of state and government at a world summit in the city on September 14th16th, had turned into such a pale shadow of the proposals that he himself had put forward in March. "With 191 member states", he sighed, "it"s not easy to get an agreement." Most countries put the blame on the United States, in the form of its abrasive new ambassador, John Bolton, for insisting at the end of August on hundreds of last minute amendments and a line-by-line renegotiation of a text most others had thought was almost settled. But a group of middle-income developing nations, including Pakistan, Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Syria and Venezuela, also came up with plenty of last-minute changes of their own. The risk of having no document at all, and thus nothing for the world"s leaders to come to New York for, was averted only by marathon all-night and all-weekend talks. The 35-page final document is not wholly devoid of substance. It calls for the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to supervise the reconstruction of countries after wars; the replacement of the discredited UN Commission on Human Rights by a supposedly tougher Human Rights Council; the recognition of a new "responsibility to protect" peoples from genocide and other atrocities when national authorities fail to take action, including, if necessary, by force; and an "early" reform of the Security Council. Although much pared down, all these proposals have at least survived. Others have not. Either they proved so contentious that they were omitted altogether, such as the sections on disarmament and non-proliferation and the International Criminal Court, or they were watered down to little more than empty platitudes. The important section on collective security and the use of force no longer even mentions the vexed issue of pre-emptive strikes; meanwhile the section on terrorism condemns it "in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes", but fails to provide the clear definition the Americans wanted. Both Mr. Annan and, more surprisingly, George Bush have nevertheless sought to put a good face on things, with Mr. Annan describing the summit document as "an important step forward" and Mr. Bush saying the UN had taken "the first steps" towards reform. Mr. Annan and Mr. Bolton are determined to go a lot further. It is now up to the General Assembly to flesh out the document"s skeleton proposals and propose new ones. But its chances of success appear slim.

The energy crisis, which is being felt around the world, has dramatized how the reckless despoiling of the earth"s resources has brought the whole world to brink of disaster. The overdevelopment of motor transport, with its increase of more cars, more highways, more pollution, more suburbs, more commuting, has contributed to the near-destruction of our cities, the disintegration of the family,and the pollution not only of local air, but also of the earth"s atmosphere. The catastrophe has arrived in the form of the energy crisis. Our present situation is unlike war, revolution, or depression. It is also unlike the great natural catastrophes of the past. Worldwide resources exploitation and energy use have brought us to a state where long-range planning is crucial. What we need is not a continuation of our present perilous state, which endangers the future of our country, our children, and our earth, but a movement forward to a new norm in order to work rapidly and effectively on planetary problems. This country has been reeling under the continuing exposures of loss of moral integrity and the revelation that lawbreaking has reached into the highest places in the land. There is a strong demand for moral revival and for some commitment that is vast enough and yet personal enough to enlist the loyalty of all. In the past it has been only in a war in defense of their own country and their own ideals that any people have been able to invoke a total commitment. This is the first time that we have been asked to defend ourselves and what we hold dear in cooperation with all the other inhabitants of this planet, who share with us the same endangered air and the same endangered oceans. There is a common need to reassess our present course, to change that course, and to devise new methods through which the world can survive. This is a priceless opportunity. To grasp it, we need a widespread understanding of the nature of the crisis confronting us—and the world—a crisis that is no passing inconvenience, no by-product of the ambition of the oil producing countries, no environmentalists" mere fears, no by-product of any present system of government. What we face is the outcome of the invention of the last four hundred years. What we need is a transformed lifestyle. This new life style can flow directly from science and technology, but its acceptance depends on an overriding commitment to a higher quality of life for the world"s children and future generation.

IdolWorshipStudythephotoscarefullyandwriteanessayinwhichyoushould1)describethephotosbriefly,2)interpretthesocialphenomenonreflectedbythem,and3)giveyourpointofview.Youshouldwrite160-200words.

【F1】 We're moving; into another era, as the toxic effects of the bubble and its grave consequences spread through the financial system. Just a couple of years ago investors dreamed of 20 percent returns forever. Now surveys show that they're down to a "realistic" 8 percent to 10 percent range. But what if the next few years turn out to be below normal expectations? Martin Barners of the Bank Credit Analyst in Montreal expects future stock returns to average just 4 percent to 6 percent. Sound impossible?【F2】 After a much smaller bubble that burst in the mid-1960s Standard & Poor's 5 000 stock average returned 6.9 percent a year(with dividends reinvested)for the following 17 years. Few investors are prepared for that. Right now denial seems to be the attitude of choice."That's typical," says Lori Lucas of Hewitt, the consulting firm. You hate to look at your investments when they're going down. Hewitt tracks 500,000 401(k)accounts every day, and finds that savers are keeping their contributions up. But they're much less inclined to switch their money around. "It's the slot-machine effect," Lucas says, "People get more interested in playing when they think they've got a hot machine—and nothing's hot today. The average investor feels overwhelmed."【F3】 Against all common sense, many savers still shut their eyes to the dangers of owning too much company stock. In big companies last year, a surprising 29 percent of employees held at least three quarters of their 402(k)in their own stock. Younger employees may have no choice. You often have to wait until you're 50 or 55 before you can sell any company stock you get as a matching contribution.【F4】 But instead of getting out when they can, old participants have been holding, too. One third of the people 60 and up chose company stock for three quarters of their plan, Hewitt reports. Are they inattentive? Loyal to a fault? Sick? It's as if Lucent, Enron and Xerox never happened. No investor should give his or her total trust to any particular company's stock. And while you're at it, think how you'd be if future stock returns—averaging good years and bad—are as poor as Barnes predicts.【F5】 If you ask me, diversified stocks remain good for the long run, with a backup in bonds. But I, too, am figuring on reduced returns. What a shame. Dear bubble, I'll never forget. It's the end of a grand affair.

Scientists have long warned that some level of global warming is a done deal—due in large part to heat-trapping greenhouse gases humans already have pumped skyward. Now, however, researchers are fleshing out how much future warming and sea-level rise the world has triggered. The implicit message: "We can"t stop this, so how do we live with it?" says Thomas Wigley, a climate researcher at NCAR. One group, led by Gerald Meehl at NCAR, used two state-of-the-art climate models to explore what could happen if the world had held atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases steady since 2000. The results: Even if the world had slammed on the brakes five years ago, global average temperatures would rise by about 1 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the 21st century. Sea levels would rise by another 4 inches over 20th-century increases. Rising sea-levels would continue well beyond 2100, even without adding water from melting glaciers and ice sheets. The rise highlights the oceans" enormous capacity to absorb heat and its slow reaction to changes in atmospheric conditions. The team ran each model several times with a range of "what if" concentrations, as well as observed concentrations, for comparison. Temperatures eventually level out, Dr. Meehl says in reviewing his team"s results. "But sea-level increases keep ongoing. The relentless nature of sea-level rise is pretty daunting". Dr. Wigley took a slightly different approach with a simpler model. He ran simulations that capped concentrations, at 2000 levels. If concentrations are held constant, warming could exceed 1.8 degrees F. by 2400. The two researchers add that far from holding steady, concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise. Thus, at best, the results point to the least change people can expect, they say. The idea that some level of global climate change from human activities is inevitable is not new. But the word has been slow to make its way into the broader debate. "Many people don"t realize we are committed right now to a significant amount of global warming and sea-level rise. The longer we wait, the more climate change we are committed to in the future", Meehl says. While the concept of climate-change commitment isn"t new, these fresh results "tell us what"s possible and what"s realistic" and that for the immediate future, "prevention is not on the table", says Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. To Pielke and others, this means adaptation should be given a much higher priority that it"s received to date. "There"s a cultural bias in favor of prevention", he says. But any sound policy includes preparation as well, he adds. "We have the scientific and technological knowledge we need to improve adaptation and apply that knowledge globally".

The past 40 years have witnessed an extraordinary evolution. From slow expensive machines controlled by punched cards, computers have become low-cost, powerful units taking up no more space than a briefcase. Simultaneously, our world has become interlaced with telephone wires, optic fibers, undersea cables, microwave links, television channels and satellite communications. At the crossing of these two developments stands the Internet—a direct result of computer technology intersecting with communication technology. But for many in the world of today"s media, this is merely a first landmark in what promises to be a giant upheaval in the way people communicate, relax and work. This is the era of digital convergence. According to a recent article in Scientific American, convergence is in principle "the union of audio, video and data communications into a single source, received on a single device, delivered by a single connection." Digital technology has already provided a medium for integrating media that until now required distinct channels of communication: we can now send emails using our televisions or text messages over mobile phones. Real-time video can be transmitted over radio channels, while television and radio can be received on Personal Computers. Full digital convergence promises real-time access to information anywhere in the world, and global communication through text, graphics, video and audio. In fact, there seems to be no technological limit to what might be possible. "The reality of "anywhere, anytime" access to broadband digital networks is going to make our lives freer and fuller," Gerald Levin, chief executive officer of AOL Time Warner, has promised. But technology alone cannot bring about such a world, as long as consumers and companies do not embrace it, convergence is likely to go the way of several hyped-up predecessors. Over a decade ago, for example, virtual reality was the technology of the future, and many people anticipated a day where we would be wearing head-mounted displays and interacting with all manner of virtual environments. At the time there was real concern about changes in industrial practices and social behavior brought about by this technology. So what happened to this vision? Well, we got it wrong. Currently, the home computer is the main interface to the Internet. But relatively few people in the world have access to PCs, and few would argue that they are ideal for the purpose—they can crash and freeze because they were not designed for widespread Internet use.

English has been successfully promoted, and has been eagerly adopted in the global linguistic marketplace. One symptom of the impact of English is linguistic【C1】______. English intrudes on all the languages that it【C2】______. The technical terms "borrowing" and "loan words," 【C3】______Calvet has indicated long before, are【C4】______, since speakers of a language who borrow words from another have no【C5】______of returning anything. The transaction is purely【C6】______, and reflects the desirability of the product to the【C7】______. The only constraint on use is understandability—though states may【C8】______ban certain foreign forms and implement measures to devise new indigenous words and expressions. Borrowing is a phenomenon that has【C9】______users of other languages for more than a century. It has also generated an extensive【C10】______on linguistic borrowing from English. British English【C11】______a large number of words of American origin, often【C12】______the source being noticed. Many languages borrow gastronomic and haute couture terms from French; 【C13】______, there is a carry-over from the use of English in many of the domains listed above into the【C14】______of other languages. The English linguistic invasion has been so【C15】______that some governments, representing both small linguistic communities, for instance Slovenia and【C16】______ones, for instance France, have adopted measures to【C17】______the tide and shore up their own languages, 【C18】______in the area of neologisms for technical concepts. Such measures, which are【C19】______to be only partially successful, reflect an anxiety that essential cultural and linguistic values are【C20】______.

This is the world out of which grows the hope, for the first time in history, of a society where there will be freedom from want and freedom from fear.

There can be no doubt that the computer revolution has touched virtually every person in the country in some way or other. Nor can there be any doubt that it has brought tremendous improvements in productivity and efficiency. (46) Indeed, there are many tasks undertaken by computers that could not be done without them, and we have reached the point that the benefits of computerization are taken for granted. Having accepted that computers are here to stay, what is the downside? (47) The most obvious answer is that because of increased efficiency, less people are needed and the loss of jobs, particularly in the service industries, has been enormous, with more job losses yet to come. However, on a more insidious note, many users have not realized how computers have introduced vulnerability to their business. If computers are soon a boon, how do we cope when something goes wrong? Computers have many uses, varying from pure accounting or back-office systems to stock or production control, or computer-aided design or manufacturing. (48) In many instances, manual systems can quickly be introduced to ensure some continuity of the business; but in many cases if the computer is down, so is the business. The most probable causes of interruption in the past have been accidental damage or breakdown, and these can usually be dealt with expeditiously. However, in recent times the exposure causing most concern to insurers have been theft. (49) Initially the problem was the theft of PCs, and because most of these were based in offices which had not been targeted by thieves in the pasty and thus had relatively poor security, losses mounted very quickly. It was common practice for a thief to make a fresh visit once the equipment had been replaced, as the new equipment would be more attractive due to rapid technological advances. The equipment would usually be covered by insurance, but problems could be experienced if there were no back-ups of date and/or programmes. The initial reaction by insurers was to step up requests for security improvements, including alarms and devices such as lock-down plates or cables. (50) However, the criminal fraternity quickly came to realize that the real value in the computers is in the chip which is remarkably portable and unidentifiable, so even when caught the police have trouble proving the theft. This led to even greater demands for security, including encapsulation and computer safes.

AttendParents"MeetingwithaGoodImageWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent article by choosing from the list A-G. Some of the paragraphs have been placed for you. (10 points)A. By contrast, somewhat more than 25 percent of the earth"s population can be found in the industrialized societies. They lead modern lives. They are products of the first half of the twentieth century, molded by mechanization and mass education, brought up with lingering memories of their own country"s agricultural past. They are, in effect, the people of the present.B. The remaining 2 or 3 percent of the world"s population, however, are no longer people of either the past or the present. For within the main centers of technological and cultural change, in Santa Monica, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in New York and London, and Tokyo, are millions of men and women who can already be said to be living the way of life of the future. Trend-makers often without being aware of it, live today as millions will live tomorrow. And while they account for only a few percent of the global population today, they are already from an international nation of the future in our midst. They are the advanced agents of man, the earliest citizens of the worldwide super-industrial society now in the throes of birth.C. It is, in fact, not too much to say that the pace of life draws a line through humanity, dividing us into camps, triggering hitter misunderstanding between parent and child, between Madison Avenue and Main Street, between men and women, between American and European, between East and West.D. What makes them different from the rest of mankind? Certainly, they are richer, better educated, more mobile than the majority of the human race. They also live longer. But what specifically marks the people of the future is the fact that they are already caught up in a new, stepped-up pace of life. They "live faster" than the people around them.E. The inhabitants of the earth are divided not only by race, nation, religion or ideology, but also, in a sense, by their position in time. Examining the present population of the globe, we find a tiny group who still live, hunting and food-foraging, as men did millennia ago. Others, the vast majority of mankind, depend not on bear-hunting or berry-picking, but on agriculture. They live, in many respects, as their ancestors did centuries ago. These two groups taken together compose perhaps 70 percent of all living human beings. They are the people of the past.F. Some people are deeply attracted to this highly accelerated pace of life—going far out of their way to bring it about and feeling anxious, tense or uncomfortable when the pace slows. They want desperately to be "where the action is". James A. Wilson has found, for example, that the attraction for a fast pace of life is one of the hidden motivating forces behind the much-publicized "brain-drain"—the mass migration of European scientists and engineers who migrated to the U.S. and Canada. He concluded that it was no higher salaries or better research facilities alone, but also the quicker tempo that lure them. The migrants, he writes, "are not put off by what they indicated as the faster pace" of North America; if anything, they appear to prefer this pace to others."G. The pace of life is frequently commented on by ordinary people. Yet, oddly enough, it has received almost no attention from either psychologists or sociologists. This is a gaping inadequacy in the behavioral sciences, for the pace of life profoundly influences behavior, evoking strong and contrasting reactions from different people.Notes：gaping 是gape的现在分词；gape vi.裂开not too much 一点也不多，一点也不过分Madison Avenue 麦迪逊街(纽约一条街道的名字。美国主要广告公司、公共关系事务所集中于此。常用以表示此等公司之作风、做法等)。Main Street 实利主义社会food-foraging 觅食的millennium 千年trend-maker(＝trend-setter) 领导新潮的人in the throes of 为…而苦干、搏斗be caught up in 陷入going far out of their way to bring it about 远远没有阻碍它的诞生brain-drain (高科技)人才流动(从欧洲到美洲)。Order: G is the first paragraph and F is the last.

Partly due to a historical development marked by worldwide colonialism, urbanization, and globalization, in the course of this century humankind is likely to experience its most extreme cultural loss. As K David Harrison notes in When Languages Die, "The last speakers of probably half of the world"s languages are alive today." Their children or grandchildren are pressured to speak only thedominant language of their community or country. Under one estimate, more than 50% of the 6,900 or so languages identified nowadays are expected to become extinct in a matter of a few ecades. The precise criteria for what counts as a distinct language are controversial—especially those regarding closely related linguistic systems, which are often inaccurately referred to as dialects of the same language. The problem is complicated by the insufficiency of studies about the grammar of many of the world"s endangered languages. In addition, from a cognitive standpoint any two groups of individuals whose languages are mutually intelligible may in fact have distinct mental grammars. As a cognitive system, a language shows dynamic properties that cannot exist independently of its speakers. This is the sense in which the Anatolian languages and Dalmatian are extinct. Therefore, language preservation depends on the maintenance of the native-speaking human groups. Unfortunately, the most accelerated loss of distinct languages takes place where economic development is rapid, worsening the breakdown of minority communities that speak different languages. In this perspective, a language often begins to die long before the passing of the last speaker: New generations may start using it only for limited purposes, increasingly shifting to the community"s dominant language. In this process, knowledge of the dying language erodes both at the individual level and at the community level. Linguistic diversity itself may be the worst loss at stake, because it may be the most promising and precise source of evidence for the range of variation allowed in the organization of the human cognitive system. For instance, Harrison discusses many strategies for manipulating quantities across languages, often endangered ones. The rapid loss of linguistic diversity substantially hinders comparative investigation about the multiple ways in which a single cognitive domain can be organized. Linguists are well aware that their efforts alone cannot prevent this loss. Community involvement, especially with government support, has proven essential in slowing or even reversing language loss in different cases (e.g., Basque and Irish). Crucially, endangered languages must be acquired by new generations of speakers. Here the biological metaphor adopted by Harrison applies appropriately—documentation of dead languages is akin to a fossil record, providing only partial clues about complex cognitive systems.