Boys and girls used to grow up and set aside their childish pursuits. Not anymore. These days, men and women hold on to their inner kid. They live with their parents far longer than previous generations. They"re getting married later. Even when they have kids, moms and dads download pop songs for their cell phone ringtones, play video games, watch cartoons, and indulge in foodsfrom their childhood. Christopher Noxon explores this Peter Pan culture in his new book, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grownup. For rejuveniles today, all roads lead back to Peter Pan and the turn of the twentieth century. The natural capacities of children, which for centuries had been viewed as weak and obstinate were over the course of these few years discovered as a primary source of inspiration and profit. It would be another century before the rejuvenile rebellion we know today, but resistance to what historian Woody Register calls "the weakening prudence, restraint and solemnity of growing up" began here, with the first flight of Pan and the dawn of the twentieth century. The temptation today is to think of adulthood as a historic and natural fact. In a 2004 essay on "The Perpetual Adolescent," Joseph Epstein wrote that adulthood was treated as the "lengthiest and most earnest part of life, where everything serious happened." To stray outside the defined boundaries of adulthood, he wrote, was "to go against what was natural and thereby to appear inappropriate, to put one"s world somehow out of joint." Before the Industrial Revolution, no one thought much about adulthood, and even less about childhood. In sixteenth-century Europe, for instance, "children shared the same games with adults, the same toys, and the same fairy stories. They lived their lives together, never apart," notes historian J.H. Plumb. This shouldn"t suggest that people in the past didn"t distinguish between kids and grown-ups. of course they did. The distinction forms the basis of rites of passage that are as old as human history. Amazonian initiation rites, Jewish Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Christian confirmations—all serve the same basic function: to formally announce the end of childhood and the assumption of new duties and freedoms. It"s a mistake, though, to confuse maturity with adulthood. The maturity celebrated in traditional rites of passage is not the same thing as the idea of adulthood hatched a century ago by a group of Victorian clergymen and society ladies. Maturity is old. "Adulthood" is new.

With Airbus" giant A380 airliner about to take to the skies, you might think planes could not get much bigger-and you would be right. For a given design, it turns (1)_____, there comes a point where the wings become too heavy to generate (2)_____ lift to carry their own weight. (3)_____ a new way of designing and making materials could (4)_____ that problem. Two engineers (5)_____ University College London have devised all innovative way to customize and control the (6)_____ of a material throughout its three-dimensional structure. In the (7)_____ of a wing, this would make possible a material that is dense, strong and load-bearing at one end, close to the fuselage, (8)_____ the extremities could be made less dense, lighter and more (9)_____. It is like making bespoke materials, (10)_____ you can customize the physical properties of every cubic millimeter of a structure. The new technique combines existing technologies in a(n) (11)_____ way, It starts by using finite-element-analysis software, of the type commonly used by engineers, (12)_____ a virtual prototype of the object. The software models the stresses and strains that the object will need to (13)_____ throughout its structure. Using this information it is then (14)_____ to calculate the precise forces acting on millions of smaller subsections of the structure. (15)_____ of these subsections is (16)_____ treated as a separate object with its own set of forces acting on it-and each subsection (17)_____ for a different microstructure to absorb those local forces. Designing so many microstructures manually (18)_____ be a huge task, so the researchers apply an optimization program, called a genetic algorithm, (19)_____. This uses a process of randomization and trial-and-error to search the vast number of possible microstructures to find the most (20)_____ design for each subsection.

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

Write a letter to a friend of yours to 1) recommend one of your favorite movies and 2) give reasons for your recommendation. 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)

Culture is the sum total of all the traditions, customs, beliefs, and ways of life of a given group of human beings. In this sense, every group has a culture, however savage, undeveloped, or uncivilized it may seem to us. To the professional anthropologist, there is no intrinsic superiority of one culture over another, just as to the professional linguist there is no intrinsic hierarchy among languages. People once thought of the languages of backward group as savage, undeveloped forms of speech, consisting largely of grunts and groans. While it is possible that languages in general began as a series of grunts and groans. It is a fact established by the study of "backward" languages that no spoken tongue answers that description today. Most languages of uncivilized groups are, by our most severe standards, extremely complex, delicate, and ingenious pieces of machinery for the transfer of ideas. They fall behind our Western languages not in their sound patterns or grammatical structures, which usually are fully adequate for all language needs, but only in their vocabularies, which reflect the objects and activities known to their speakers. Even in this department, however, two things are to be noted: 1. All languages seem to possess the machinery for vocabulary expansion, whether by putting together words already in existence or by borrowing them from other languages and adapting them to their own systems. 2. The objects and activities requiring names and distinctions for "backward" languages, while different from ours, are often surprisingly numerous and complicated. A Western language distinguishes between what is close to the speaker, or to the person addressed, or removed from both, or out of sight, or in the past, or in the future. This study of language, in turn, casts a new light upon the claim of the anthropologists that all cultures are to be viewed independently, and without ideas of rank or hierarchy.

Writeanessayof160—200wordsbasedonthefollowingphoto.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethephotobriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourowncomments.Youshouldwriteneatly.

The teaching of English as a second language (ESL) in schools has had a history of conflicting arguments, interesting innovations and some very positive methodological changes. To understand the present situation, it is necessary to consider the past and the wider educational context which has a hearing on it. Until quite recently, approaches to ESL work have been strongly influenced by methods developed to teach English as a foreign language to older learners. These methods placed much emphasis on drills, exercises and remedial programs that focus on language in abstraction. (46) The prescriptive nature of such methods and the demands they made on the teacher"s time developed the belief that ESL work could be tackled only by the specialist ESL teacher working with small groups of children. Such an approach does not fit comfortably into current notions of learning and teaching in the primary school, nor does it sufficiently equip ESL learners in the secondary school to benefit from normal schooling. (47) In prescribing what language is to be taught, it has ignored what children bring to the learning task and the choices they make about how and what they want to learn. Furthermore, the location and organization of language provision did not measure up to the demand. (48) The language centers and English language services all contributed to providing special and concentrated teaching of English as a second language in small groups, varying in size from four or five to fifteen. Whatever the pattern of provision, the main aim was to give pupils sufficient English to enable them to join normal schools as quickly as possible. The success of such special provision depended very much on the close and constant liaison of language teachers with the subject teachers and the class teachers and on the continuity of learning experiences provided by them. (49) One of the important disadvantages of language centers and withdrawal groups was that ESL children were being taught away from those English-speakers who provide the most powerful models, i.e. their peer group. Peer-group interaction is an important element in any learning situation, but its particular strengths in a classroom with ESL learners cannot be overemphasized. (50) The separation of second language learners from the mainstream classroom cannot easily be justified on educational grounds, since in practice it leads to both their curriculum and language learning being impoverished. Notes: context 环境。bear on 对…有影响，关系到…。例如：I don"t see how this bears on the matter. (我不明白这一点与那些事的关系)。liaison n. 联结。liaison of A with A与B之间的联系。

Everybody doesn't believe that rumor.

Parenthood isn't a career-killer. In fact, economists with two or more kids tend to produce more research, not less, than their one-child or childless colleagues. But female economists 【B1】______ can pay a price in terms of productivity after becoming mothers, especially 【B2】______ they're young or unmarried. That's according to a new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. There is widespread 【B3】______ that motherhood is 【B4】______ costly in terms of professional career advancement. "In particular, it is often 【B5】______ that the only way for young women to 【B6】______ a challenging career is to remain childless," they wrote. Our study of the academic labor market arrives at a somewhat less【B7】______picture: We do not observe a family gap in research productivity among female academic economists.【B8】______, motherhood-induced decreases in research productivity are less pronounced than usually purported. The authors in early 2012 【B9】______ about 10, 000 economists through the Research Papers in Economics online platform,【B10】______the academics' answers with their publication records. They gauged an economist' s productivity【B11】______looking at their output: published research, weighted by journal【B12】______. Among their findings: Mothers of at least two children are,【B13】______, more productive than mothers of only one child, and mothers in general are more【B14】______than childless women. Fathers of【B15】______two children are also more productive than fathers of one child and childless men. Toward the end of their careers, however, childless men appear to be somewhat more productive than fathers of one child. Parenthood does appear linked to【B16】______productivity while the children are 12 and younger: mothers average a 17.4% loss, while fathers average a 5% loss. A female economist with three children, on average,【B17】______the equivalent of four years of research【B18】______by the time her kids become teenagers. Women who are married or in a【B19】______relationship do not have any drop in research productivity in the three years following childbirth. For single mothers, research output drops by roughly a third【B20】______the same period.

In every cultivated language there are two great classes of words which, taken together, comprise the whole vocabulary. First, there are those words【C1】______which we become acquainted in daily conversation, which we 【C2】______, that is to say, from the【C3】______of our own family and from our familiar associates, and 【C4】______we should know and use【C5】______we could not read or write. They【C6】______the common things of life, and are the stock in trade of all who【C7】______the language. such words may be called "popular", since they belong to the people 【C8】______and are not the exclusive【C9】______of a limited class. On the other hand, our language 【C10】______ a multitude of words which are comparatively【C11】______used in ordinary conversation. Their meanings are known to every educated person, but there is little【C12】______ to use them at home or in the market-place. Our【C13】______acquaintance with them comes not from our mother"s【C14】______or from the talk of our schoolmates , 【C15】______from books that we read, lectures that we【C16】______, or the more【C17】______conversation of highly educated speakers who are discussing some particular【C18】______ in a style appropriately elevated above the habitual【C19】______of everyday life. Such words are called "learned", and the【C20】______between them and the "popular" words is of great importance to a right understanding of linguistic process.

Studythefollowingpicturecarefullyandwriteanessayinnolessthan160—200words.Youressaymustbewrittenclearlyandyouressayshouldmeettherequirementsbelow:1)Describethefollowingdrawing,interpretitsmeaning,and2)Giveyourcomments.

Though not biologically related, friends are as "related" as fourth cousins, sharing about 1% of genes. That is【B1】______1 a study, published from the University of California and Yale University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has【B2】______ The study is a genome-wide analysis conducted【B3】______1, 932 unique subjects which【B4】______pairs of unrelated friends and unrelated strangers. The same people were used in both【B5】______ While 1 % may seem【B6】______, it is not so to a geneticist. As James Fowler, professor of medical genetics at UC San Diego, says,"Most people do not even【B7】______their fourth cousins but somehow manage to select as friends the people who【B8】______our kin." The study【B9】______found that the genes for smell were something shared in friends but not genes for immunity. Why this similarity exists in smell genes is difficult to explain, for now. 【B10】______, as the team suggests,it draws us to similar environments but there is more【B11】______it. There could be many mechanisms working together that【B12】______us in choosing genetically similar friends【B13】______"functional kinship" of being friends with【B14】______! One of the remarkable findings of the study was that the similar genes seem to be evolving 【B15】______than other genes. Studying this could help【B16】______why human evolution picked pace in the last 30,000 years, with social environment being a major【B17】______factor. The findings do not simply explain people"s【B18】______to befriend those of similar【B19】______backgrounds, say the researchers. Though all the subjects were drawn from a population of European extraction, care was taken to【B20】______that all subjects, friends and strangers, were taken from the same population.

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

A.Especiallysincesexting(sexandtexting)mightactuallybetheleastofourworries.Comparedwithwhattheyareactuallydoing,teenagers"virtualsexlivesmaybelessamirrorthananillusion,animageofhowtheyseethemselvesthatvanishesasyougetupclose.Theresearchsuggeststhatevenastheygetmoreelectronicallyimmodest,theyaredelayingactualsex,havingfewerpartnersandgenerallybehavingmoreresponsiblythanmanyoftheirparentsdid.Byallmeans,comedownhardonthekidwhousesaphonetocheatorbullyorharassorcauseharm.Butwhenitcomestobaringall,remindthemthateveniftheyescapethelawthey"llnevererasethetrail.B.Justdon"timaginethatyoucanprevailbybruteforce.Youcanblockwebsites,limittimeonline,screene-mail,removethewebcam.Butkidsaremorenimblethanwise;theywillfindaworkaround.Andwearefightingontheirterritory.Theyareupinthetreesandundergroundandincaveswhilewemarcharoundinourbrightreduniformstryingtodefendtheirdignityandvirtue.Notafairfight.C.Unfortunatelyit"stoolatetolegislatethatnooneshouldbeallowedacellphoneuntilheorsheisatleast18andfullylicensedtouseit.Cellphonestookusbysurprise:sosmall,soinnocent,sopowerfulinthehandsofaboredortwistedteenwhonowhasanextremelyefficienttoolforwastingtime,cheatingontests,bullyingclassmates,arrangingdrugdealsand,morecommonly,flirting(tomakeplayfullyromanticorsexualovertures)inajunior-varsityversionofGirlsGoneWild.D.HowmanyparentsinsistedafterColumbineandSept.11thattheirchildrenbereachableatalltimes?Howcomfortingtogivekidscellphones,sothaturgentreassuranceswerenevermorethan10digitsaway.Andhowhandy,aswejuggledjobsandmeetingsandsoccermatches,tobeabletorearrangedeploymentsonthefly.Theirphonesservedourneedssowell;toobadwedidn"tfactorinadolescentcreativity.E.Therushofprosecutions,however,justremindsusthatthelawmakesanawfulparent.Alegalsystemnaturallydependsondeterrence;youmakeanexampleofthoseyoumanagetocatch,sothatpotentialoffendersthinktwice.Buttomanyateen,dangerisaslikelytofeeddesireastofrustrateit.Thequalitiesrequiredtoshapetheirbehavior,thehumorandpatiencemixedjustacertainwaywithclarityandresolve,aretoomuchtoexpectfromlawswrittentoapplyequallytoeveryone.Don"tweneedtoexemptthemfromprosecutionforbeingidiotsandtofindsomebetterwaytopunishconductthatwedidn"tmanagetoprevent?F.Butthere"snothingquiteliketheimageofyourchildonaregistryofsexoffenderstoconcentratetheparentalmind.Itnowhasacatchynewlabel,but"sexting"hasbeenaround,asatrickandaproblem,foryears:in2004a15-year-oldPittsburghgirlwaschargedwithsexualabuseofchildrenanddisseminationofchildpornographywhenshepostednudepicturesofherselfonline.Andjustinthepastyear,morethanadozenstateshavefollowedsuit,arrestingkidsasyoungas13forsendingorreceivingsmuttypicturesontheirphones.Forparents,thesecaseshavesuddenlyraisedtheprospectofretirementsavingsmelteddowntopaylegalbills,collegedreamsdeferred,scholarshipslost.G.Isthisthedarksideoftheparentalimagination?Yes.ButastudyreleasedlastDecemberfoundthatoneinfiveteenshadsentorpostedanakedpictureofthemselves,andathirdhadreceivedsuchapictureorvideobytextmessageore-mail.Threeoutoffourteenssaypostingsuggestivestuff"canhaveseriousnegativeconsequences,"whichmeanstheyknowit"sdumb—andtheydoitanyway.

In theory, a government bailout should provide a short-term" infusion of cash to give a struggling company the chance to right itself. But in its aggressive dealings with U.S. automakers, most recently General Motors, the Obama administration is coming dangerously close to engaging in financial engineering that ignores basic principles of fairness and economic realities toachieve political goals. It is now clear that there is no real difference between the government and GM. For all intents and purposes, the government, which is set to assume a 50 percent equity stake in the company, is GM, and it has been calling the shots in negotiations with creditors. While the Obama administration has been playing hardball with bondholders, it has been more than happy to play nice with the United Auto Workers (UAW). How else to explain why a retiree health-care fund controlled by the UAW is going to get a 39 percent equity stake in GM for its remaining $10 billion in claims while bondholders are being pressured to take a 10 percent stake for their $27 billion? It"s highly unlikely that the auto industry professionals at GM would have reached such a deal if the government had not been watching them—or providing the money needed to keep the factory doors open. GM is widely expected to file for bankruptcy before the end of this month. If this were a typical bankruptcy, the company would be allowed by law to tear up its UAW collective bargaining agreement and negotiate for drastically reduced wages and benefits. Surely, the government won"t let that happen. Still, the threat of a contract abolition probably played a role in the union"s agreement to cost-cutting measures last week. It"s never easy for unions to make concessions, but the sting of handing back money is being softened by the government"s desire to give the union a huge ownership stake in GM. The administration argues that it could not risk alienating the union for fear of triggering a strike that could permanently cripple GM. It also assumes that it had to agree to protect suppliers and fund warranties in order to preserve jobs and reassure potential buyers that their cars would be serviced. These are legitimate concerns. But it"s too bad that the Obama administration has not thought more deeply about how its bullying of bondholders could convince future investors that the last thing they want to do is put money into any company that the government has—or could—become involved in.

Never underestimate the learning power of play. One of Parks' findings is that children 【C1】______valuable learning opportunities when unstructured play is reduced or eliminated【C2】______more time in the classroom. "I think a lot of public school systems【C3】______to see the importance of play," says Parks, assistant professor of early childhood education. "【C4】______, play is under-valued and lot of that is because of top-down【C5】______over standards and testing." "Their work is often framed in trying to【C6】______out what's wrong with these kids. It's very【C7】______and not at all what I【C8】______as a classroom teacher. " "I found the children【C9】______to learn, and their families were supportive and curious," she adds. "So when I got to academia, I thought it was【C10】______to read all these studies about kids not being【C11】______, or not being able to solve problems." So she【C12】______her own research project with a different approach. She is【C13】______the same minority group of 14 young children for three years, starting in【C14】______, to see how they learn mathematics, both in the【C15】______classroom setting as well as informally in school, and at home. "Just sitting there, looking at what is happening in their【C16】______surroundings, you can find things that【C17】______you," she says. She hopes her research will prove how important play is to【C18】______problem-solving skills, and in other critical ways. 【C19】______there is something else, just as important for Parks. "It is the equity piece of trying to change the conversation in the research community about what kids can do generally, and what minority kids can do【C20】______," she says.

It is no longer just dirty blue-collar jobs in manufacturing that are being sucked offshore but also white-collar service jobs, which used to be considered safe from foreign competition. Telecoms charges have tumbled, allowing workers in far-flung locations to be connected cheaply to customers in the developed world. This has made it possible to offshore services that were once non-tradable. Morgan Stanley"s Mr. Roach has been drawing attention to the fact that the "global labour arbitrage" is moving rapidly to the better kinds of jobs. It is no longer just basic data processing and call centres that are being outsourced to low-wage countries, but also software programming, medical diagnostics, engineering design, law, accounting, finance and business consulting. These can now be delivered electronically from anywhere in the world, exposing skilled white-collar workers to greater competition. The standard retort to such arguments is that outsourcing abroad is too small to matter much. So far fewer than lm American service-sector jobs have been lost to off-shoring. Forrester Research forecasts that by 2015 a total of 3.4m jobs in services will have moved abroad, but that is tiny compared with the 30m jobs destroyed and created in America every year. The trouble is that such studies allow only for the sorts of jobs that are already being off-shored, when in reality the proportion of jobs that can be moved will rise as IT advances and education improves in emerging economies. Alan Blinder, an economist at Princeton University, believes that most economists are underestimating the disruptive effects of off-shoring, and that in future two to three times as many service jobs will be susceptible to off-shoring as in manufacturing. This would imply that at least 30% of all jobs might be at risk. In practice the number of jobs off-shored to China or India is likely to remain fairly modest. Even so, the mere threat that they could be shifted will depress wages: Moreover, says Mr. Blinder, education offers no protection. Highly skilled accountants, radiologists or computer programmers now have to compete with electronically delivered competition from abroad, whereas humble taxi drivers, janitors and crane operators remain safe from off-shoring. This may help to explain why the real median wage of American graduates hat fallen by 6% since 2000, a bigger decline than in average wages. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the pay gap between low-paid, low-skilled workers and high-paid, high-skilled workers widened significantly. But since then, according to a study by David Autor, Lawrence Katz and Melissa Kearney, in America, Britain and Germany workers at the bottom as well as at the top have done better than those in the middle-income group. Office cleaning cannot be done by workers in India. It is the easily standardised skilled job? in the middle, such as accounting, that are now being squeezed hardest. A study by Bradford Jensen and Lori Kletzer, at the Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C., confirms that workers in tradable services that are exposed to foreign competition tend to be more skilled than workers in non-tradable services and tradable manufacturing industries.

[A]Set a Good Example for Your Kids [B]Build Your Kids' Work Skills [C]Place Time Limits on Leisure Activities [D]Talk about the Future on a Regular Basis [E]Help Kids Develop Coping Strategies [F]Help Your Kids Figure Out Who They Are [G]Build Your Kids' Sense of Responsibility Mothers and fathers can do a lot to ensure a safe landing in early adulthood for their kids. Even if a job' s starting salary seems too small to satisfy an emerging adult' s need for rapid content, the transition from school to work can be less of a setback if the start-up adult is ready for the move. Here are a few measures, drawn from my book Ready or Not, Here Life Comes, that parents can take to prevent what I call "work-life uneasiness". 【C1】______ You can start this process when they are 11 or 12. Periodically review their emerging strengths and weaknesses with them and work together on any shortcomings, like difficulty in communicating well or collaborating. Also, identify the kinds of interests they keep coming back to, as these offer clues to the careers that will fit them best. 【C2】______ Kids need a range of authentic role models—as opposed to members of their clique, pop stars and vaunted athletes. Have regular dinner-table discussions about people the family knows and how they got where they are. Discuss the joys and downsides of your own career and encourage your kids to form some ideas about their own future. When asked what they want to do, they should be discouraged from saying "I have no idea." They can change their minds 200 times, but having only a foggy view of the future is of little good. 【C3】______ Teachers are responsible for teaching kids how to learn; parents should be responsible for teaching them how to work. Assign responsibilities around the house and make sure homework deadlines are met. Encourage teenagers to take a part-time job. Kids need plenty of practice delaying gratification and deploying effective organizational skills, such as managing time and setting priorities. 【C4】______ Playing video games encourages immediate content. And hours of watching TV shows with canned laughter only teaches kids to process information in a passive way. At the same time, listening through earphones to the same monotonous beats for long stretches encourages kids to stay inside their bubble instead of pursuing other endeavors. All these activities can prevent the growth of important communication and thinking skills and make it difficult for kids to develop the kind of sustained concentration they will need for most jobs. 【C5】______ They should know how to deal with setbacks, stresses and feelings of inadequacy. They should also learn how to solve problems and resolve conflicts, ways to brainstorm and think critically. Discussions at home can help kids practice doing these things and help them apply these skills to everyday life situations. What about the son or daughter who is grown but seems to be struggling and wandering aimlessly through early adulthood? Parents still have a major role to play, but now it is more delicate. They have to be careful not to come across as disappointed in their child. They should exhibit strong interest and respect for whatever currently interests their fledging adult(as naive or ill conceived as it may seem)while becoming a partner in exploring options for the future. Most of all, these new adults must feel that they are respected and supported by a family that appreciates them.

In a perfectly free and open market economy, the type of employer—government or private—should have little or no impact on the earnings differentials between women and men. However if there is discrimination against one sex, it is unlikely that the degree of discrimination by government and private employers will be the same. Differences in the degree of discrimination would result in earnings differentials associated with the type of employer. Given the nature of government and private employers, it seems most likely that discrimination by private employers would be greater. Thus, one would expect that, if women are being discriminated against, government employment would have a positive effect on women"s earnings as compared with their earnings from private employment. The results of a study by Fuchs support this assumption. Fuchs" results suggest that the earnings of women in an industry composed entirely of government employees would by 14.6 percent greater than the earnings of women in an industry composed exclusively of private employees, other things being equal. In addition, both Fuchs and Sanborn have suggested that the effect of discrimination by consumers on the earnings of self-employed women may be greater than the effect of either government or private employer discrimination on the earnings of women employees. To test this hypothesis, Brown selected a large sample of White male and female workers from the 1970 Census and divided them into three categories: private employees, government employees, and self-employed (Black workers were excluded from the sample to avoid picking up earnings differentials that were the result of racial disparities). Brown"s research design controlled for education, labor-force participation, mobility, motivation, and age in order to eliminate these factors as explanations of the study"s results. Brown"s results suggest that men and women are not treated the same by employers and consumers. For men, self-employment is the highest earnings category, with private employment next, and government lowest. For women, this order is reversed. One can infer from Brown"s results that consumers discriminate against self-employed women. In addition, self-employed women may have more difficulty than men in getting good employees and may encounter discrimination from suppliers and from financial institutions. Brown"s results are clearly consistent with Fuchs" argument that discrimination by consumers has a greater impact on the earnings of women than does discrimination by either government or private employers. Also, the fact that women do better working for government than for private employers implies that private employers are discriminating against women. The results do not prove that government does not discriminate against women. They do, however, demonstrate that if government is discriminating women, its discrimination is not having as much effect on women"s earnings as is discrimination in the private sector.

The standardized educational or psychological tests that are widely used to aid in selecting, assigning, or promoting students, employees, and military personnel have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and even in Congress. The target is wrong, for in attacking the tests, critics divert attention from the fault that lies with ill-informed or incompetent users. The tests themselves are merely tools, with characteristics that can be measured with reasonable precision under specified conditions. Whether the results will be valuable, meaningless, or even misleading depends partly upon the tool itself but largely upon the user. All informed predictions of future performance are based upon some knowledge of relevant past performance. How well the predictions will be validated by later performance depends upon the amount, reliability, and appropriateness of the information used and on the skill and wisdom with which it is interpreted. Anyone who keeps careful score knows that the information available is always incomplete and that the predictions are always subject to error. Standardized tests should be considered in this context. They provide a quick, objective method of getting some kinds of information about what a person has learned, the skills he has developed, or the kind of person he is. The information so obtained has, qualitatively, the same advantages and shortcomings as other kinds of information. Whether to use tests, other kinds of information, or both in a particular situation depends, therefore, upon the empirical evidence concerning comparative validity, and upon such factors as cost and availability. In general, the tests work most effectively when the traits or qualities to be measured can be most precisely defined (for example, ability to do well in a particular course of training program) and least effectively when what is to be measured or predicted cannot be well defined (for example, personality or creativity). Properly used, they provide a rapid means of getting comparable information about many people. Sometimes they identify students whose high potential has not been previously recognized, but there are many things they do not do. For example, they don"t compensate for gross social inequality, and thus don"t tell how able an underprivileged younger might have been had he grown up under more favorable circumstances.Notes: divert attention from 没有注意到。keep careful score 仔细记分。define vt.界定。