Until about four decades ago, crop yields in agricultural systems depended on (1)_____ resources, recycling organic matter, built-in biological control mechanisms and rainfall patterns. Agricultural yields were (2)_____ but stable. Production was (3)_____ by growing more than one crop or variety in space and time in a field as insurance against pest (4)_____ or severe weather. Inputs of nitrogen were (5)_____ by rotating major field crops with legumes. In turn, rotations suppressed insects, weeds and diseases by effectively (6)_____ the life cycles of these pests. A typical corn belt farmer grew corn (7)_____ with several crops including soybeans, and small grain production was intrinsic to maintain livestock. Most of the labor was done by the family with occasional hired help and no (8)_____ equipment or services were purchased from off4arm sources. In these type of farming systems the link between agriculture and ecology was quite (9)_____ and signs of environment degradation were seldom evident. But as agriculture modernization (10)_____ the ecology-farming linkage was often broken as ecological principles were (11)_____. In fact, several agricultural scientists have arrived at a (12)_____ consensus that modem agriculture confronts an environment crisis. A growing number of people have become concerned about the long-term (13)_____ of existing food production systems. Evidence has shown that (14)_____ the present capital-and-technology-intensive fanning systems have been extremely productive and competitive, they also bring a (15)_____ of economic, environmental and social problems. Evidence also shows that the very nature of the agricultural structure and prevailing polices have led to this environmental (16)_____ by favoring large farm size, specialized production, crop monocultures and mechanization. Today as more and more farmers are integrated (17)_____ international economies, imperatives to (18)_____ disappear and monocultures are rewarded by economies of scale. In turn, lack of rotations and diversification (19)_____ key self-regulating mechanisms, turning monocultures into highly (20)_____ agro-ecosystems dependent on high chemical inputs.

Baghdad, Iraq—If, in time, the attempt to implant a pro-Western, democratic political system in Iraq ends up buried in the desert sands, historians will have no shortage of things that went wrong. (46) Equally, if the problems here ultimately recede, supporters of the enterprise will find vindication(证明…正确) in the Bush administration"s decision to hold course as others lost faith. (47) Either way, any reckoning will examine the numbers of American troops committed here: whether they were so thinly stretched that their mission was doomed from the start, or, as Secretary Of Defense Donald Rumsfield said last week, American commanders were given "exactly what they"ve recommended" in terms of troops. Mr. Rumsfield has long taken a "less is more" approach to combat troop levels, and in a BBC interview Monday, he seemed to move toward those now pressing to reduce troop levels soon. (48) "The reason for fewer", he said, "is because ultimately it"s going to be the Iraqi people who are going to prevail in this insurgency(起义)"—in other words, Iraqi, not American, troops are the ones who will win the war, if it can be won. The words seemed at least to nod to politics. (49) Last week, even as opinion polls showed continuing erosion in support for the war, a conservative from a state heavy with military Bases who has been a staunch(坚定的) supporter of the war, Representative Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, joined with another Republican and two Democrats in calling on President Bush to begin drawing down the troops in Iraq by Oct. 1, 2006. Earlier this year, the Pentagon offered an even earlier date for an initial reduction. But in recent weeks, American generals here have been telling Congressional visitors that the disappointing performance of many Iraqi combat units has made early departures impractical. They say it will be two years or more before Iraqis can be expected to begin replacing American units as the main guarantors of security. Commanders concerned for their careers have not thought it prudent to go further, and to say publicly what many say privately: that with recent American troop levels 139,000 now—they have been forced to play an infernal board game, constantly shuttling combat units from one war zone to another, leaving insurgent buildups unmet in some places while they deal with more urgent problems elsewhere. Generals are not famous for wanting smaller armies. (50) But American commanders here have been cautioned by the reality that the Pentagon(五角大楼), in a time of all-volunteer forces and plunging recruiting levels, has few if any extra troops to deploy(部署), and that there are limits to what American public opinion would bear. So the generals have kept quiet about troop levels.

ForQuestions1-5,choosethemostsuitableparagraphsfromthelistA-Gtofillthemintothenumberedboxestoformacoherenttext.ParagraphEhasbeencorrectlyplaced.Thereisoneparagraphwhichdoesnotfitinwiththetext.[A]Thefirstandmoreimportantistheconsumer"sgrowingpreferenceforeatingout;consumptionoffoodanddrinkinplacesotherthanhomeshasrisenfromabout32percentoftotalconsumptionin1995to35percentin2000andisexpectedtoapproach38percentby2005.Thisdevelopmentisboostingwholesaledemandfromthefoodservicesegmentby4to5percentayearacrossEurope,comparedwithgrowthinretaildemandof1to2percent.Meanwhile,astherecessionisloominglarge,peoplearegettinganxious.Theytendtokeepatighterholdontheirpurseandconsidereatingathomearealisticalternative.[B]RetailsalesoffoodanddrinkinEurope"slargestmarketsareatastandstill,leavingEuropeangroceryretailershungryforopportunitiestogrow.Mostleadingretailershavealreadytriede-commerce,withlimitedsuccess,andexpansionabroad.Butalmostallhaveignoredthebig,profitableopportunityintheirownbackyard:thewholesalefoodanddrinktrade,whichappearstobejustthekindofmarketretailersneed.[C]Willsuchvariationsbringaboutachangeintheoverallstructureofthefoodanddrinkmarket?Definitelynot.Thefunctioningofthemarketisbasedonflexibletrendsdominatedbypotentialbuyers.Inotherwords,itisuptothebuyer,ratherthantheseller,todecidewhattobuy.Atanyrate,thischangewillultimatelybeacclaimedbyanever-growingnumberofbothdomesticandinternationalconsumers,regardlessofhowlongthecurrentconsumerpatternwilltakehold.[D]Allinall,thisclearlyseemstobeamarketinwhichbigretailerscouldprofitablyapplytheirscale,existinginfrastructure,andprovenskillsinthemanagementofproductranges,logistics,andmarketingintelligence.RetailersthatmastertheintricaciesofwholesalinginEuropemaywellexpecttorakeinsubstantialprofitsthereby.Atleast,thatishowitlooksasawhole.Closerinspectionrevealsimportantdifferencesamongthebiggestnationalmarkets,especiallyintheircustomersegmentsandwholesalestructures,aswellasthecompetitivedynamicsofindividualfoodanddrinkcategories.BigretailersmustunderstandthesedifferencesbeforetheycanidentifythesegmentsofEuropeanwholesalinginwhichtheirparticularabilitiesmightunseatsmallerbutentrenchedcompetitors.Newskillsandunfamiliarbusinessmodelsareneeded,too.[E]Despitevariationsindetail,wholesalemarketsinthecountriesthathavebeencloselyexamined—France,Germany,ItalyandSpain—aremadeoutofthesamebuildingblocks.Demandcomesmainlyfromtwosources:independentmom-and-popgrocerystores,whichunlikelargeretailchains,aretoosmalltobuystraightfromproducers,andfoodserviceoperatorsthatcatertoconsumerswhentheydon"teatathome.Suchfoodserviceoperatorsrangefromsnackmachinestolargeinstitutionalcateringventures,butmostofthesebusinessesareknowninthetradeas"horeca":hotels,restaurantsandcafes.Overall,Europe"swholesalemarketforfoodanddrinkisgrowingatthesamesluggishpaceastheretailmarket,butthefigures,whenaddedtogether,masktwoopposingtrends.[F]Forexample,wholesalefoodanddrinksalescometo$168billioninFrance,Germany,Italy,Spain,andtheUnitedKingdomin2000—morethan40percentofretailsales.Moreover,averageoverallmarginsarehigherinwholesalethaninretail;wholesaledemandfromthefoodservicesectorisgrowingquicklyasmoreEuropeanseatoutmoreoften;andchangesinthecompetitivedynamicsofthisfragmentedindustryareatlastmakingitfeasibleforwholesalerstoconsolidate.[G]However,noneoftheserequirementsshoulddeterlargeretailers(andevensomelargegoodproducersandexistingwholesalers)fromtryingtheirhand,forthosethatmastertheintricaciesofwholesalinginEuropestandtoreapconsiderablegains.

Climatic conditions are delicately adjusted to the composition of the Earth"s atmosphere. If there were a change in the atmosphere—for example, in the relative proportions of atmospheric gases"-the climate would probably change also. A slight increase in water vapor, for instance, would increase the heat-retaining capacity of the atmosphere and would lead to a rise in global temperatures. In contrast, a large increase in water vapor would increase the thickness and extent of the cloud layer, reducing the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth"s surface. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has an important effect on climatic change. Most of the Earth"s incoming energy is short-wavelength radiation, which tends to pass through atmospheric carbon dioxide easily. The Earth, however, reradiates much of the received energy as long-wavelength radiation, which carbon dioxide absorbs and then remits toward the Earth. This phenomenon, known as the greenhouse effect, can result in an increase in the surface temperature of a planet. An extreme example of the effect is shown by Venus, a planet covered by heavy clouds composed mostly of carbon dioxide, whose surface temperatures have been measured at 43012. If the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere is reduced, the temperature falls. According to one respectable theory, if the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration were halved, the Earth would become completely covered with ice. Another equally respectable theory, however, states that a halving of the carbon dioxide concentration would lead only to reduction in global temperatures of 312. If, because of an increase in forest fires or volcanic activity, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increased, a warmer climate would be produced. Plant growth, which relies on both the warmth and the availability of carbon dioxide, would probably increase. As a consequence, plants would use more and more carbon dioxide. Eventually carbon dioxide levels would diminish and the climate, in turn, would become cooler. With reduced temperatures many plants would die; carbon dioxide would thereby be returned to the atmosphere and gradually the temperature would rise again. Thus, if this process occurred, there might be a long-term oscillation in the amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, with regular temperature increases and decreases of a set magnitude. Some climatologists argue that the burning of fossil fuels has raised the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and has caused a global temperature increase of at least 1℃. But a supposed global temperature rise of 112 may in reality be only several regional temperature increases, restricted to areas where there are many meteorological stations and mused simply by shifts in the pattern of atmospheric circulation. Other areas, for example, the Southern Hemisphere Oceanic Zone, may be experiencing an equivalent temperature decrease that is unrecognized because of the shortage of meteorological recording stations.

The twin English passions for gardening and long muddy walks may seem puzzling to foreigners, yet they are easily explained in terms of a favourite economist"s concept: scarcity. Most other nations have lots of countryside. England doesn"t, and therefore its people prize the stuff. One consequence of the rural romance is a word which exists only in English and describes those with a particular sort of hostility to development: Nimbys, who don"t mind new housing so long as it is Not In My Back Yard. Another consequence is a problem for the government. Compared with its neighbours" economies, Britain"s has been doing very nicely in recent years. Only one big threat looms: the possibility of a bust in the overheated and volatile housing market, which could feed through to the rest of the economy and lead to recession, as happened in the early 1990s. The government reckons that one reason why house prices have been rising so fast, particularly in the south-east of England, is that, while real wages have been going up and foreigners pouring in, little new housing is being built. Nimbyism helps explain the shortage of new housing in the south-east. People living in pretty villages don"t want new estates on their doorstep. After all, they spent their hard-earned cash on a view of rolling acres, not of spanking new red-tiled roofs. Nimbys" hostility to development acquires legal force through the planning system, which has, in large part, been controlled by elected local authorities. Although some big new developments—including the first new towns since the early 1970s—are getting the go-ahead, others are hard-fought. The government"s solution is to undermine local planning powers. The new Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, which starts to come into force next month, shifts power from elected county councils to unelected regional bodies, and gives statutory force to the government"s estimates of the number of new houses needed in different bits of the country. That will make it harder for councils in overheated areas to turn down developers. The government is right that the planning system is excessively biased against growth: existing property-owners, who control the system through local authorities, have little interest in sanctioning developments which may reduce the value of their houses. But the government was wrong to go about lowering the barriers to development by talking power away from local authorities, thus further centralizing Britain"s already far-too-centralised political system.

Insurance policies that cover disrupted holidays have been safeguarding people"s vacation investments for years, but in today"s stormy times, Americans are increasingly willing to pay for the privilege , experts say. "People are more aware of what can get between you and a good vacation," said Jon Ansell, president of the Travel Insurance Association. But while these travel policies can protect consumers from losing non-refundable deposits, a failure to shop wisely can lead to confusion, misunderstanding—and one very expensive week spent sitting at home. The policies are usually purchased on a per-trip basis, and typically offer reimbursements for three types of risk—financial losses due to postponement, delay, interruption or cancellation of the trip; medical care; and loss, theft or damage of personal property. Policy costs are based on total amount insured and usually range from 4% to 8% of the cost of your vacation. Most of the time, policies offer seemingly broad coverage; 80% of the policies bought by U. S. travelers typically cover cancellation, interruption and delay, along with medical expenses, according to the U. S. Travel Insurance Association. Yet for some travelers, that peace of mind is undermined by a failure to read the fine print. A policy that covers "unforeseen circumstances" such as jury duty or an accident on the way to the airport, for example, may not cover the equally unforeseen circumstance of being called into work. Policies that promise "cancel for any reason" coverage may offer just 75% in refunds. Such intricacies become more crucial as the American public increasingly turns to these policies in an age where vacations can be turned upside down by terror attacks and hurricanes. Before the 2001 terror attacks, roughly 11% of travelers bought insurance. Today, it"s well over 30% , according to the Travel Insurance Association. "And they should," said Catherine L. Rossi, spokeswoman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "A cruise is going to cost you a significant amount of money. Maybe you"ve saved a lifetime for that. " Sometimes, people"s own assumptions can get in the way as well, experts said. Don"t assume your credit card or homeowner"s policy will cover cancellations, or that the cruise line"s "cancellation waiver" will solve the problem. Such fees can be less expensive than insurance, but also come without its assurances, said Matt Denn, Delaware"s insurance commissioner. "Make sure that you know how much effort you need to make to seek reimbursement," he said.

It is important that they be looking at the speaker at the precise moment when the speaker reestablishes eye contact: if they are not looking, the speaker assumes that they are disinterested and either will pause until eye contact is resumed or will terminate the conversation.

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) The first two stages in the development of civilized man were probably the invention of primitive weapons and the discovery of fire, although nobody knows exactly when he acquired the use of the latter. (41)______. Animals have a few cries that serve as signals, but even the highest apes have not been found able to pronounce words, even with the most intensive professional instruction. The superior brain of man is apparently a necessity for the mastering of speech. When man became sufficiently intelligent, we must suppose that he gradually increased the number of cries for different purposes. It was a great day when he discovered that speech could be used for narrative. There are those who think that in this respect picture language preceded oral language. A man could draw a picture on the wall of his cave to show in which direction he had gone, or what prey he hoped to catch. (42)______. Two important stages came not so long before the dawn of written history. The first was the domestication of animals; the second was agriculture. Agriculture made possible an immense increase in the number of the human species in the regions where it could be successfully practiced. (43)______. (44)______. These inventions and discoveries—fire, speech, weapons domestic animals, agriculture, and writing made the existence of civilized communities possible. From about 3000 B.C. until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution less than two hundred years ago there was no technical advance comparable to these. During this long period man had time to become accustomed to his technique, and to develop the beliefs and political organizations appropriate to it. There was, of course, an immense extension in the area of civilized life. At first it had been confined to the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Indus, but at the end of the period in question it covered much the greatest part of the inhabitable globe. I do not mean to suggest that there was no technical progress during the time. (45)______.Notes: ape 猿 pastoral nomad 田园式的游牧部落的人 the Euphrates 幼发拉底河the Tigris 底格里斯河 the Indus 印度河 in question 所谈的(在名词后作后置定语)A. Probably picture language and oral language developed side by side. I am inclined to think that language has been the most important single factor in the development of man.B. Another fundamental technical advance was writing, which, like spoken language, developed out of pictures, but as soon as it had reached a certain stage, it was possible to keep records and transmit information to people who were not present when the information was given.C. With the development of civilization, primitive people who lived in caves at that time badly needed a language, which would help them to communicate with one another.D. The origin of language is also obscure. No doubt it began very gradually.E. In fact, there was progress—there were even two inventions of very great importance, namely, gunpowder and the mariner"s compass—but neither of these can be compared in their revolutionary power to such things as speech and writing and agriculture.F. These were, at first, only those in which nature fertilized the soil after each harvest. Agriculture met with violent resistance from the pastoral nomads, but the agricultural way of life prevailed in the end because of the physical comforts it provided.G. But industry was a step in human progress to which subsequently there was nothing comparable until our own machine age.

More and more people are starting to work from home, re-assessing their "work-life balance" and capitalizing on what industry calls "remote working". A recent survey of British companies showed that eight out of ten businesses have now agreed new working arrangements for their personnel. The object of the exercise was to improve the work-life Balance of employees and encourage greater levels of efficiency. During 2003/2004, some 900,000 requests to work flexibly were made under a new Government scheme and 800,000 of the applications were granted. Furthermore, seven out of ten businesses said that they also would be prepared to consider flexible working requests from other staff who did not qualify under the Government scheme. One of the new technological developments that makes remote working possible is the Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), broadband that can carry both voice and data at high-speed. Remote workers can connect to their company"s Virtual Private Network either through Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) internet, which is permanently connected, or through a Remote Access Service (RAS), which involves having to dial in each time. "People started thinking about remote working back in the Eighties but the technology was not available to consider it a possibility", says Meyrick Vevers, Commercial Director of Telewest Broadband, one of UK"s communication and media groups. "However, now with the increased availability and use of DSL to home users, remote working is definitely on the increase". Of course, security is very important and IT directors are understandably cautious. But they are now beginning to feel more comfortable about allowing their staff a higher level of access from home. Telewest Business"s experience in putting together product solutions is based on the company"s focus on understanding their customers" needs. Because customers" needs are diverse and Telewest Business"s possible solutions are wide-ranging, the company invites businesses seeking further information to visit their web site or call direct. Call centre workers, mobile staff, such as sales executives and local authority social workers or parents at home, are among those for whom remote working appears to be increasingly attractive. "People in industry in the UK have some of the longest working hours in the world", says Vevers. "Doing those hours solely in the office is more disruptive to the personal life of the individual than having the flexibility to work from home". "Remote working is all about personal choice and giving people more flexibility that suits their personal lives. At Telewest Business, we aim to try and help play a part in enabling companies to give their employees that flexibility".

BPart B/B

Life, at least for a seed, is better out in the world. 【R1】______Seeds know how to get around. 【R2】______But they all have the same goal: to take root and give rise to the next generation. Scientists can understand what type of dispersal strategy a plant employs by looking at its environment. For example, dispersal by sea currents is important for plants that grow on seashores, and wind is important in open grasslands. And for each type of dispersal, there is a type of design. 【R3】______ "Among species with seeds dispersed internally by animals, the size of the seed or fruit, its color, and the presence of protective husks will reflect the swallowing, visual, and processing abilities of the seed disperser, " Birkinshaw said. For example, seeds spread by small birds will be small in size, covered with plant flesh(to give the birds a reward for eating it), huskless(since most birds are ill equipped to remove such an outer shell), and brightly colored(since birds have good color vision). Some seeds have no specific dispersal strategy, like the coco-de-mer, a palm tree that only grows in the Seychelles, an island chain in the Indian Ocean. These palms have the largest seeds of any plant and lack any seed dispersal method other than gravity, Birkinshaw said. In other cases, as with the rare Mada-gascan palms Satranala decussilvae and Voanioala gerardii, the seeds collect in piles beneath their parent trees. 【R4】______ According to John Dransfield, an expert on Madagascan palms with the United Kingdom's Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, both of these palms have very large seeds that animals alive today are incapable of moving. "You start dreaming up stories that it could have been distributed by a now extinct animal" , he said. Possible extinct dispersers of the palms are large lemurs that once roamed Madagascar or flightless elephant birds, which were the largest birds known to have lived in Madagascar. There are only a few of these Madagascan palms left standing. 【R5】______ Donald Drake is a botanist with the University of Hawaii in Honolulu who studies how plant and animal interaction affects reproduction of native plants and food for native animals in the Pacific Ocean islands. He said loss of animals to disperse seeds certainly impacts a plant's viability, but "hard, conclusive data are difficult to come by". He and colleague Kim McConkey are currently engaged in research that suggests animals may stop performing ecological functions such as seed dispersal long before they go extinct. "We found this to be the case with flying foxes", Drake said. Flying foxes are among the few remaining large animals that disperse seeds on islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. "Many flying foxes are either rare or extinct", Drake said, "If they cease to be effective dispersers long before reaching that stage, there is a possibility that the results we found are of wide applicability". [A]Wind-dispersed seeds are generally lightweight and have adaptations such as wings and parachutes so they can catch a ride on the breeze. Water-dispersed seeds, such as coconuts, are buoyant. Seeds dispersed by animals usually offer a nutritional reward so that they are eaten, or they are sticky or barbed so they can latch on to passing bodies. [B]If researchers can confirm that indeed the animal disperser of the palms, seeds are extinct, then the only way to prevent the trees themselves from becoming extinct may be to reintroduce seedlings into the forest with a controlled program of replanting, Dransfield said. [C]In order to maintain effective seed-dispersing populations, the researchers say it is important to take conservation actions before seed-dispersing animal species drop below this threshold. [D]Some fly with the wind, others go with the flow. Many hitch a ride with unsuspecting animals. [E]Some animals cease being effective seed dispersers when their population densities fall below a point that induces them to compete over food resources—they stop bothering to scatter and hide their food stores. [F]In general, seed dispersal away from the parent plant increases the chances that a seed will reach maturity. [G]Researchers believe that perhaps their animal dispersers are long extinct.

Bill Gates, the billionaire Microsoft chairman without a single earned university degree, is by his success raising new doubts about the worth of the business world"s favorite academic title, the MBA (Master of Business Administration). (46) The MBA, a 20th-century product, always has borne the mark of lowly commerce and greed on the tree-lined campuses ruled by purer disciplines such as philosophy and literature. But even with the recession apparently cutting into the hiring of business school graduates, about 79,000 people are expected to receive MBAs in 1993. (47) This is nearly 16 times the number of business graduates in 1960, a testimony to the widespread assumption that the MBA is vital for young men and women who want to run companies some day. "If you are going into the corporate world it is still a disadvantage not to have one," said Donald Morrison, professor of marketing and management science. "But in the last five years or so, when someone says, "Should I attempt to get an MBA", the answer a lot more is: It depends." (48) The success of Bill Gates and other non-MBAs, such as the late Sam Walton of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., has helped inspire self-conscious debates on business school campuses over the worth of a business degree and whether management skills" can be taught. The Harvard Business Review printed a lively, fictional exchange of letters to dramatize complaints about business degree holders. (49) The article called MBA hires "extremely disappointing" and said, "MBAs want to move up too fast, they don"t understand politics and people, and they aren"t able to function as part of a team until their third year. But by then, they"re out looking for other jobs. " The problem, most participants in the debate acknowledge, is that the MBA has acquired an aura of future fiches and power far beyond its actual importance and usefulness. Enrollment in business schools exploded in the 1970s and 1980s and created the assumption that no one who pursued a business career could do without one. The growth was fueled by a backlash against the anti-business values of the 1960s and by the woman"s movement. (50) Business people who have hired or worked with MBAs say those with the degrees often know how to analyze systems but are not so skillful at motivating people. "They don"t get a lot of grounding in the people side of the business," said James Shaffer, vice-president and principal of the Towers Perrin management consulting firm.

In the idealized version of how science is done, facts about the world are waiting to be observed and collected by objective researchers who use the scientific method to carry out their work. But in the everyday practice of science, discovery frequently follows an ambiguous and complicated route. We aim to be objective, but we cannot escape the context of our unique life experiences. Prior knowledge and interest influence what we experience, what we think our experiences mean, and the subsequent actions we take. Opportunities for misinterpretation, error, and self-deception abound. Consequently, discovery claims should be thought of as protoscience. Similar to newly staked mining claims, they are full of potential. But it takes collective scrutiny and acceptance to transform a discovery claim into a mature discovery. This is the credibility process, through which the individual researcher"s me, here, now becomes the community"s anyone, anywhere, anytime. Objective knowledge is the goal, not the starting point. Once a discovery claim becomes public, the discoverer receives intellectual credit. But, unlike with mining claims, the community takes control of what happens next. Within the complex social structure of the scientific community, researchers make discoveries; editors and reviewers act as gatekeepers by controlling the publication process; other scientists use the new finding to suit their own purposes; and finally, the public (including other scientists) receives the new discovery and possibly accompanying technology. As a discovery claim works its way through the community, the interaction and confrontation between shared and competing beliefs about the science and the technology involved transforms an individual"s discovery claim into the community"s credible discovery. Two paradoxes exist throughout this credibility process. First, scientific work tends to focus on some aspect of prevailing knowledge that is viewed as incomplete or incorrect. Little reward accompanies duplication and confirmation of what is already known and believed. The goal is new-search, not re-search. Not surprisingly, newly published discovery claims and credible discoveries that appear to be important and convincing will always be open to challenge and potential modification or refutation by future researchers. Second, novelty itself frequently provokes disbelief. Nobel Laureate and physiologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi once described discovery as "seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." But thinking what nobody else has thought and telling others what they have missed may not change their views. Sometimes years are required for truly novel discovery claims to be accepted and appreciated. In the end, credibility "happens" to a discovery claim—a process that corresponds to what philosopher Annette Baier has described as the commons of the mind. "We reason together, challenge, revise, and complete each other"s reasoning and each other"s conceptions of reason."

An Advertisement Write an advertisement of about 100 words based on the following situation: The Ohio Program of Intensive English is enrolling students. This program is to help students learn English quickly. Now write an advertisement on behalf of the program.

Condolence Write an e-mail of about 100 words based on the following situation: Your friend Mike"s father passed away yesterday. Mike is in deep sorrow. Now write him an e-mail of condolence. Do not sign your own name at the end of the e-mail. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

King Richard III was a monster. He poisoned his wife, stole the throne from his two young nephews and ordered them to be smothered in the Tower of London. Richard was a sort of Antichrist the King—"that bottled spider, that poisonous bunch-backed toad". Anyway, that was Shakespeare"s version. Shakespeare did what the playwright does: he turned history into a vivid, articulate, organized dream-repeatable nightly. He put the crouch back onstage, and sold tickets. And who would say that the real Richard known to family and friends was not identical to Shakespeare"s memorably loathsome creation? The actual Richard went dimming into the past and vanished. When all the eye-witnesses are gone, the artist"s imagination begins to twist. Variations on the King Richard Effect are at work in Oliver Stone"s JFK. Richard III was art, but it was propaganda too. Shakespeare took the details of his plot from Tudor historians who wanted to blacken Richard"s name. Several centuries passed before other historians began to write about Richard"s virtues and suggest that he may have been a victim of Tudor malice and what is the cleverest conspiracy of all: art. JFK is a long and powerful harangue about the death of the man—Stone keeps calling "the slain young king." What are the rules of Stone"s game? Is Stone functioning as commercial entertainer? Propagandist? Documentary filmmaker? Historian? Journalist? Fantasist? Sensationalist? Crazy conspiracy-monger? Lone hero crusading for the truth against a corrupt Establishment? Answer: some of the above. The first superficial effect of JFK is to raise angry little scruples like welts in the conscience. Wouldn"t it be absurd if a generation of younger Americans, with no memory of 1963, were to form their ideas about John Kennedy"s assassination from Oliver Stone"s report of it? But worse things have happened—including, perhaps, the Warren Commission report? Stone uses a suspect, mixed art form, and JFK raises the familiar ethical and historical problems of docudrama. But so what? Artists have always used public events as raw material, have taken history into their imaginations and transformed it. The fall of Troy vanished into the Iliad. The Battle of Borodino found its most memorable permanence in Tolstoy"s imagining of it in War and Peace. Especially in a world of insatiable electronic storytelling, real history procreates, endlessly conjuring new versions of itself. Public life has become a metaphysical breeder of fictions. Watergate became an almost continuous television miniseries—although it is interesting that the movie of Woodward and Bernstein"s All The President"s Men stayed close to the known facts and, unlike JFK, did not validate dark conjecture.

Writeanessayof160~200wordsbasedonthefollowingpictures.Inyouressay,youshould1.describethepicturesbriefly,2.interpretthemeaning,and3.giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyontheANSWERSHEET.(20points)

In a family where the roles of women and men are not sharply separated, notions of male superiority are hard to maintain. The pattern of sharing in tasks and in decisions makes for equality, and this【B1】______leads to further sharing. In such a home, the【B2】______boy and girl learn to【B3】______the equality more easily than did their parents and to prepare more fully for【B4】______in a world characterized by cooperation【B5】______by the "battle of the sexes". 【B6】______the process goes too far and man"s role is regarded as【B7】______important and that has happened in some cases—we are badly off as before, only【B8】______reverse. It is time to【B9】______the role of the American family. We are getting tired of "Momism" but we don"t want to【B10】______it for a "neo-Popism". What we need, rather, is【B11】______that bringing up children involves a partnership of equals. There are signs that experts on the family are【B12】______of the part men play and that they have decided that woman should not receive all the【B13】______—nor all the blame. We have almost【B14】______saying that a woman"s place is in the home. We are beginning,【B15】______, to analyze men"s place in the home and to insist that he does have a place in it. Nor is that place【B16】______to the healthy development of the child. The family is a co-operative enterprise for which it is difficult to【B17】______rules, because each family needs to work to its own ways for【B18】______its own problems. Excessive authoritarianism has unhappy【B19】______, whether it wears skirts or trousers, and the【B20】______of equal rights and equal responsibilities is connected not only with a healthy democracy, but also with a healthy family.

Up until a few decades ago, our visions of the future were largely—though by no means uniformly— glowingly positive. Science and technology would cure all the ills of humanity, leading to lives of fulfillment and opportunity for all. Now utopia has grown unfashionable, as we have gained a deeper appreciation of the range of threats facing us, from asteroid strike to epidemic flu to climate change. You might even be tempted to assume that humanity has little future to look forward to. But such gloominess is misplaced. The fossil record shows that many species have endured for millions of years—so why shouldn' t we? Take a broader look at our species' place in the universe, and it becomes clear that we have an excellent chance of surviving for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of years. Look up Homo sapiens in the "Red List" of threatened species of the International Union for the Conversation of Nature(IUCN)and you will read: "Listed as Least Concern as the species is very widely distributed, adaptable, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline." So what does our deep future hold? A growing number of researchers and organizations are now thinking seriously about that question. For example, the Long Now Foundation has its flagship project a mechanical clock that is designed to still be marking time thousands of years hence. Perhaps willfully, it may be easier to think about such lengthy timescales than about the more immediate future. The potential evolution of today' s technology, and its social consequences, is dazzlingly complicated, and it's perhaps best left to science fiction writers and futurologists to explore the many possibilities we can envisage. That' s one reason why we have launched Arc, a new publication dedicated to the near future. But take a longer view and there is a surprising amount that we can say with considerable assurance. As so often, the past holds the key to the future: we have now identified enough of the long-term patterns shaping the history of the planet, and our species, to make evidence-based forecasts about the situations in which our descendants will find themselves. This long perspective makes the pessimistic view of our prospects seem more likely to be a passing fad. To be sure, the future is not all rosy. But we are now knowledgeable enough to reduce many of the risks that threatened the existence of earlier humans, and to improve the lot of those to come.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethepicturebriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.