The long and progressive reign of Queen Victoria came to a climax at a time of peace and plenty when the British Empire seemed to be at the summit of its power and security. Of the discord that soon followed we shall here note only two factors which had large influence on contemporary English literature. The first disturbing factor was imperialism, the reawakening of a dominating spirit which had seemingly been put to sleep by the proclamation of an Imperial Federation. (46) Its coming was heralded by the Boer War in South Africa, through which Britain blundered to what was hoped to be an era of peace and good will. Other nations promptly made such hope a vain whistling in the wind. Japanese War Lords began a career of conquest which aimed to make Japan master of Asia and East Indies. Pacific islands that had for ages slept peacefully were turned into frowning naval stations. (47) Even the United States, aroused by an easy triumph in the Spanish War, started on an imperialistic adventure by taking control of the Philippines, thus making an implacable enemy of Japan. Only a nation that enters on a dangerous course with eyes wide open has any chance of a safe way out, and the imperialistic nations were all alike blind. (48) An inevitable result was the First War and the great horror of a Second World War, the two disasters being different acts of the same tragedy of imperialism, separated only by a breathing spell. Another factor that influenced literature for the worse was a widespread demand for social reform of every kind; not slow and orderly reform, which is progress, but immediate and uncontrolled reform, which breeds a spirit of rebellion and despair. Before the Victorian age had come to an end, English literature appeared to have lost touch with healthy English life. Many writers echoed the sorrowful cry of James Thomson in his City of Dreadful Night, or babbled of "art for art"s sake" with Oscar Wilde. (49) Groom, in his survey of the period, notes that writers had mostly a critical attitude toward morals and religion, Church and State, as relics from "the dead hand of traditional beliefs." (50) Small wonder that German and Japanese war-advocates regarded Englishmen as a decadent race when the same or a worse opinion was daily read in the novels of Samuel Butler and nightly heard in the plays of Bernard Shaw.

Timothy Berners-Lee, might be giving Bill Gates a run for the money, but he passed up his shot at fabulous wealth—intentionally—in 1990. That"s when he decided not to patent the technology used to create the most important software innovation in the final decade of the 20th century: the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee wanted to make the world a richer place, not amass personal wealth. So he gave his brainchild to us all. Berners-Lee regards today"s Web as a rebellious adolescent that can never fulfill his original expectations. By 2005, he hopes to begin replacing it with the Semantic Web—a smart network that will finally understand human languages and make computers virtually as easy to work with as other humans. As envisioned by Berners-Lee, the new Web would understand not only the meaning of words and concepts but also theological relationships among them. That has awesome potential. Most knowledge is built on two pillars: semantic and mathematics. In number-crunching, computers already outclass people. Machines that are equally admit at dealing with language and reason won"t just help people uncover new insights; they could blaze new trails on their own. Even with a fairly crude version of this future Web, mining online repositories for nuggets of knowledge would no longer force people to wade through screen after screen of extraneous data. Instead, computers would dispatch intelligent agents, or software messengers, to explore Websites by the thousands and logically sift out just what"s relevant. That alone would provide a major boost in productivity at work and at home. But there"s far more. Software agents could also take on many routine business chores, such as helping manufacturers find and negotiate with lowest-cost parts suppliers and handling help-desk questions. The Semantic Web would also be a bottomless trove of eureka insights. Most inventions and scientific breakthroughs, including today"s Web, spring from novel combinations of existing knowledge. The Semantic Web would make it possible to evaluate more combinations overnight than a person could juggle in a lifetime. Sure scientists and other people can post ideas on the Web today for others to read. But with machines doing the reading and translating technical terms, related ideas from millions of Web pages could be distilled and summarized. That will lift the ability to assess and integrate information to new heights. The Semantic Web, Berners-Lee predicts, "will help more people become more intuitive as well as more analytical. It will foster global collaborations among people with diverse cultural perspectives, so we have a better chance of finding the right solutions to the really big issues—like the environment and climate warming".

Recently, a possible alternative way of producing paper has been suggested by agriculturalists and environmentalists: a plant called hemp. Hemp has been cultivated by many cultures for thousands of years. It produces fiber, which can be made into paper, fuel, oils, textiles, food, and rope. For centuries, it was essential to the economies of many countries because it was used to make the ropes and cables used on sailing ships; colonial expansion and the establishment of a world wide trading network would not have been feasible without hemp. Nowadays, ships" cables are usually made from wire or synthetic fibers, but scientists are now suggesting that the cultivation of hemp should be revived for the production of paper and pulp. According to its proponents, four times as much paper can be produced from land using hemp rather than trees, and many environmentalists believe that the large-scale cultivation of hemp could reduce the pressure on world"s forests. However, there is a problem: hemp is illegal in many countries of the world. This plant, so useful for fiber, rope, oil, fuel and textiles, is a species of cannabis(大麻), related to the plant from which marijuana is produced. In the late 1930s, a movement to ban the drug marijuana began to gather froce, resulting in the eventual banning of the cultivation not only of the plant used to produce the drug, but also of the commercial producing—producing hemp plant. Although both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp in large quantities on their own land, any American growing the plant today would soon find himself in prison—despite the fact that marijuana cannot be produced from the hemp plant, since it contains almost no THC (the active ingredient in the drug). In recent years, two major movements for legalization have been gathering strength. One group of activists believes that ALL cannabis should be legal—both the hemp plant and the marijuana plant—and that the use of the drug marijuana should not be an offense. They argue that marijuana is not dangerous or addictive, and that it is used by large numbers of people who are not criminals but productive members of society. They also point out that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol or tobacco. The other legalization movement is concerned only with the hemp plant used to produce producing; this group wants to make it legal to cultivate the plant and sell the fiber for paper and pulp production. This second group has had a major triumph recently: in 1997, Canada legalized the farming of hemp for fiber. For the first time since 1938, hundreds of farmers are planting this crop, and soon we can expect to see pulp and paper produced from this new source.

Health in general terms includes many non-medical areas, such as housing and employment. As far as individual is concerned, welfare benefits come in two main categories—fiat rate and supplementary. Flat rate benefits are those a person has an automatic right to (provided he or she has made a certain number of contributions to the Department of Health and Social Security). Unemployment benefit is one of these. Supplementary benefits are based on a means test. In other words, they are benefits given, regardless of contributions made, where the government decides that an individual has insufficient resources for a minimum standard of living. These benefits can be in the form of allowances for rent and rates, special diet, heating and clothing. Such benefits have to be claimed and the individual has to give full details of all his or her capital assets and sources of income. Unclaimed benefits amount to approximately $100 million each year. The originators of the Welfare State idea were concerned to alleviate or remove what they saw as the evils of their time. Their efforts resulted in a great improvement in the standard of living and life expectancy in Britain. This progress in itself has simulated the increasing cost of maintaining the Welfare State. Over 45 percent of the health authority expenditure on hospitals and community services is spent on care of the elderly. Yet there are indications that beverage calculated that less would need to be spent on people once they retired. Advances in medical knowledge have involved the use of expensive drugs and hospital procedures. Drug and alcohol abuse make increasing demands on the medical services. The present government is planning a new approach to the social security system, which accounts for nearly one-third of public expenditure. Changes in the movement"s pension scheme to encourage private schemes will start from April this year. Different ways of assessing need are planned. To enable closer monitoring and control, the DHSS has begun the biggest computerization program in Europe. Suggestions have been made by opposition politicians that the present movement intends to say "farewell" to the Welfare State. Although all the major parties in Britain say they are committed" to a caring society. There"s a considerable difference in the means each would wish to use to achieve it. As the old saying goes, "Only time will tell".

Depression manifests itself in different forms. Some feel sad, others become agitated and aggressive. While some lose their appetite, others hinge eat. Some may have disturbed sleep and others may find it hard to stay awake. Social withdrawal, diminished sex drive, suicidal tendencies and lack of concentration are some other tell-tale symptoms of depression. "No two patients have identical symptoms," says Dr. Vihang Wahia, a practising psychiatrist in Mumbai. Of course, all human beings have variations in their moods. Scientists describe mood as an amalgam of emotions such as anxiety, anger, pride, love, pain or joy that a person feels over a period of time. The emotions of feeding sad, unhappy or disappointed are part of a human being"s normal existence. Such emotions are often associated with failure in academics, break-up of a relationship, setbacks in a financial investment or the death of B loved one. However, depression as a disease sets in when a person fails to bounce back from a personal setback like this. "Diagnosing depression early is very important," says Dr. Wahia. In most mild cases of depression. patients can be brought back to normality just by good counselling. "Clearing some cobwebs of life is all that required," he observes. But it"s different in the case of those who suffer from moderate to severe depression. Certain changes occur in their brains and, in addition to counselling, they require medication to help re-wire the brain. It is estimated that 5-10 percent of the Indian population suffers from depression at any given time. And women seem to be more prone to the disease than men. The risk of developing depression is 10-20 percent in women and slightly less in men. What " s more, the male to female ratio for developing depression is between 1 : 2 and 1 : 3, says Dr Dhanesh K. Gupta, associate professor. This is because women undergo frequent hormonal changes in the reproductively active years of their life. In India one of the major problems in treating the growing incidence of depression is the fact that it is often not diagnosed at all. Either the doctor fails to see its severity in a patient or patients simply don"t come out and report their condition. Of course, more patients come forward with the problem now than earlier, when it used to be viewed as a social stigma. But even so, many cases are not reported early enough. As Dr. Rajesh Sagar, associate professor of psychiatry, says, "Depression is grossly underdiagnosed and under-treated in India. "

【F1】 Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick II in the thirteenth century, it may be. Hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent. All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected. Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. 【F2】 Most often the reason for this backward speaking is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at the right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed. 【F3】 Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes vowel-like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than grammar. Recent evidence suggests that an infant is bora with the capacity to speak. What is special about man' s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a toy-bear with the sound pattern "toy-bear." 【F4】 And even more incredible is the young brain' s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyze, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways. 【F5】 But speech has to be induced, and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child's babbling and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child's non-verbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.

TheTimeofGreenLightWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3)giveyourcomments.

As thick-skinned elected officials go, FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter is right up there with Bill Clinton. The chief of the Zurich-based group that oversees World Cup soccer hasn"t been accused of groping any interns, but that"s about all he hasn"t been accused of. Vote buying, mismanagement, cronyism—and that"s just for starters. Yet the 66-year-old Swiss shows no sign of abandoning his campaign for a second four-year term. Blatter, a geek of dispensing FIFA"S hundreds of million in annual revenue to inspire loyalty, even stands a good chance of reelection. At least he did. Since mid-March, he has seen a credible challenger emerge in Issa Hayatou, president of the African Football Confederation. Hayatou, a 55-year-old from Cameroon, leads a group of FIFA reformers that also includes FIFA Vice-President Lennart Johansson, a Swede who lost the presidential election to Blatter in 1998. These contenders" mission: to end what they call the culture of secrecy and lack of accountability that threatens FIFA with financial disaster. Representatives of the world"s 204 national soccer associations meet in Seoul on May 29, and the rebels are given a chance of unseating Blatter. But even they concede that the FIFA honcho won"t be easy to dislodge. Blatter"s staying power seems incredible, given the array of misdeeds attributed to him and his circle. However, there are signs that FIFA"S troubles are bigger than Blatter is saying. The insurgents have already won one victory: They persuaded the rest of the executive board to order an audit of FIFA finances. But Blatter—who claims, through a spokesman, that the accusations are a smear campaign-should not be underestimated. At least publicly, sponsors and member associations remain remarkably siient with the controversy. For example, there is no outward sign of outrage from German sports equipment maker Adidas Salomon, which is spending much of its $625 million marketing budget on the World Cup. "We don"t expect current developments within FIFA to have a negative impact on our expectations" for the World Cup, says Michael Riehl, Adidas head of global sports marketing. The conventional wisdom is that fans don"t care about FIFA politics. Says Bernd Schiphorst, president of Hertha BSC Berlin, a top-ranked German team: "I"ve no fear that all these discussions are going to touch the event". Still, the Olympic bribery scandals and the doping affair in the Tour de France show that sleazy dealings can stain the most venerable athletic spectacle. "For the Good of the Game" is FIFA"S official motto. The next few months should show whether it rings true.

Why do we along with 75 other countries—alternate between standard time and daylight time? Although many people believe it has an agricultural provenance, daylight time has always been a policy meant to save energy. As Benjamin Franklin argued, if people moved up their summer schedules by an hour, they could live by "sunshine rather than candles" in the evenings. Energy conservation was the motivation for daylight time during World Wars I and II and the oil embargo of the 1970s, and it remains so today—even though there has been little scientific evidence to suggest daylight time actually helps us cut back on electricity use. Recently, however, we were able to conduct a study in Indiana, where daylight time was instituted statewide only in 2006. Before that year, daylight time was in effect in just a handful of counties. This change of policy offered a unique, natural experiment to measure the overall effect on residential electricity consumption. We could compare the amount of energy used by households in the late-adopting counties during the two years before they switched to daylight time with the amounts they used during the year afterward—while using counties that always practiced daylight time as a control group. We found that daylight time caused a 1 percent overall increase in residential electricity use, though the effect varied from month to month. The greatest increase occurred in late summer and early fall, when electricity use rose by 2 percent to 4 percent. Daylight time costs Indiana households an average of $3. 29 a year in higher electricity bills, or about $ 9 million for the whole state. We also calculated the health and other social costs of increased pollution emissions at $1.7 million to $5.5 million per year. What explains this unexpected result? While daylight time reduces demand for household lighting, it increases demand for heating in the early spring and late fall(in the mornings)and, even more important, for cooling on summer evenings. Benjamin Franklin was right about candles, in other words, but he did not consider air-conditioners. In regions of the United States where demand for air-conditioning is greater than in Indiana, this spike in cooling costs is likely to be even greater. Arizona, one of the hottest states, may have it right; it does not practice daylight time. Eliminating daylight time would thus accord with President-elect Barack Obama"s stated goals of conserving resources, saving money, promoting energy security and reducing climate change. At the very least, we should abandon the notion that we are saving energy while enjoying the extra hour of sunlight on hot summer evenings.

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B

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 job of raising children is a tough one. Children don"t come with an instruction manual. And each child is different. (41)______. To Americans, the goal of parents is to help children stand on their own two feet. From infancy, each child may get his or her own room. As children grow, they gain more freedom to make their own choices. Teenagers choose their own forms of entertainment, as well as the friends to share them with. (42)______. But once they "leave the nest" at around 18 to 21 years old, they want to be on their own, not "tied to their mother"s apron strings". (43)______. When children become adults, their relationship with their parents becomes more like a friendship among equals. But contrary to popular belief, most adult Americans don"t make their parents pay for room and board when they come to visit. Even as adults, they respect and honor their parents. (44)______. Many Americans have strong feelings about which type of arrangement is best. Some argue that attending a day care center can be a positive experience for children. Others insist that mothers are the best caregivers for children. A number of women are now leaving the work force to become full-time homemakers. (45)______. Many parents feel that an old-fashioned spanking helps youngsters learn what "No!" means. Others prefer alternate forms of discipline. For example, "time outs" have become popular in recent years. Children in "time out" have to sit in a corner or by a wall. They can get up only when they are ready to act nicely. Older children and teenagers who break the rules may be grounded, or not allowed to go out with friends. Some of their privileges at home—like TV or telephone use—may also be taken away for a while. Although discipline can"t fun for parents or children, it"s a necessary part of training. Being a parent is a tall order. It takes patience, love, wisdom, courage and a good sense of humor to raise children (and not lose your sanity). Some people are just deciding not to have children at all, since they"re not sure it"s worth it, But raising children means training the next generation and preserving our culture. What could be worth more than that?A. The relationship between parents and children in America is very informal. American parents try to treat their children as individuals—not as extensions of them- selves. They allow them to fulfill their own dreams. Americans praise and encourage their children to give them the confidence to succeed.B. So parents sometimes pull their hair out in frustration, not knowing what to do. But in raising children—as in all of life—what we do is influenced by our culture. Naturally then, American parents teach their children basic American values.C. Disciplining children is another area that American parents have differing opinions about.D. Naturally, every parent wants their child to be safe, whether the child is online or on the school bus. And certainly if you suspect your child is involved in drugs, inappropriate relationships, or other dangerous situations, it"s your responsibility to step in and intervene using whatever tools are necessary.E. When they reach young adulthood, they choose their own careers and marriage partners. Of course, many young adults still seek their parents" advice and approval for the choices they make.F. Most young couples with children struggle with the issue of childcare. Mothers have traditionally stayed home with their children. In recent years, though, a growing trend is to put preschoolers in a day care center so Mom can work.G. Keep the family PC in an accessible part of the house where you can easily keep an eye on your children"s activity, and limit the amount of time your kids spend online. Discuss some of the dangers of the Internet with older children, and make sure they understand that they should not provide personal information such as their name, address, or school to people they meet online, and they should never agree to meet an online acquaintance face to face without your permission.

"When a customer enters my store, forget me. He is king," decreed John Wanamaker, who in 1876 turned an abandoned railway depot in Philadelphia into one of the world"s first department stores. This revolutionary concept changed the face of retailing and led to the development of advertising and marketing as we know it today. But compelling as that slogan was, in truth the shopper was cheated of the crown. Although manufacturing efficiency boosted the variety of goods and lowered prices, advertising provided most information about products. Through much of the past century, ads spoke to a captive audience confined to just a few radio or television channels or a limited number of publications. Now media choice has exploded too, and consumers select what they want from a far greater variety of sources—especially with a few clicks of a computer mouse. Thanks to the internet, the consumer is finally seizing power. As our survey in this issue shows, consumer power has profound implications for companies, because it is changing the way the world shops. Many firms already claim to be "customer-driven" or "consumer-centric". Now their claims will be tested as never before. Trading on shoppers" ignorance will no longer be possible: people will know—and soon tell others, even those without the internet—that prices in the next town are cheaper or that certain goods are inferior. The internet is working wonders in raising standards. Good and honest firms should benefit most. But it is also intensifying competition. Today, window shopping takes place online. People can compare products, prices and reputations. They can read what companies say about products in far greater detail, but also how that tallies with the opinions of others, and—most importantly of all—discover what previous buyers have to say. Newsgroups and websites constantly review products and services. This is changing the nature of consumer decision. Until recently, consumers usually learned about a product and made their choice at the same time. People would often visit a department store or dealership to seek advice from a salesman, look at his recommendations and then buy. Now, for many, each of these steps is separate. For instance, Ford is finding that eight out of ten of its customers have already used the internet to decide what car they want to buy—and what they are willing to pay—even before they arrive at a show room.

We have reached the conclusion that the practice is the criterion for testing truth.

法律教育对于新闻报道事业的意义 ——2007年英译汉及详解 The study of law has been recognized for centuries as a basic intellectual discipline in European universities. However, only in recent years has it become a feature of undergraduate programs in Canadian universities.【F1】 Traditionally, legal learning has been viewed in such institutions as the special preserve of lawyers, rather than a necessary part of the intellectual equipment of an educated person. Happily, the older and more continental view of legal education is establishing itself in a number of Canadian universities and some have even begun to offer undergraduate degrees in law. If the study of law is beginning to establish itself as part and parcel of a general education, its aims and methods should appeal directly to journalism educators. Law is a discipline which encourages responsible judgment. On the one hand, it provides opportunities to analyze such ideas as justice, democracy and freedom.【F2】 On the other, it links these concepts to everyday realities in a manner which is parallel to the links journalists forge on a daily basis as they cover and comment on the news. For example, notions of evidence and fact, of basic rights and public interest are at work in the process of journalistic judgment and production just as in courts of law. Sharpening judgment by absorbing and reflecting on law is a desirable component of a journalist" s intellectual preparation for his or her career. 【F3】 But the idea that the journalist must understand the law more profoundly than an ordinary citizen rests on an understanding of the established conventions and special responsibilities of the news media. Politics or, more broadly, the functioning of the state, is a major subject for journalists. The better informed they are about the way the state works, the better their reporting will be.【F4】 In fact, it is difficult to see how journalists who do not have a clear grasp of the basic features of the Canadian Constitution can do a competent job on political stories. Furthermore, the legal system and the events which occur within it are primary subjects for journalists. While the quality of legal journalism varies greatly, there is an undue reliance amongst many journal ists on interpretations supplied to them by lawyers.【F5】 While comment and reaction from lawyers may enhance stories, it is preferable for journalists to rely on their own notions of significance and make their own judgments. These can only come from a well-grounded understanding of the legal system.

Suicide, proclaimed Albert Camus, a French Algerian author, philosopher, and journalist, in "The Myth of Sisyphus", is the only serious philosophical problem. In France at the moment it is also a serious management problem. A series of attempted and successful suicides at France Telecom—many of them explicitly prompted by troubles at work—has sparked a national debate about life in the modern corporation. There are some insular reasons for this melancholy trend. France Telecom is making the difficult transition from state monopoly to multinational company. It has shed 22,000 jobs since 2006, but two-thirds of the remaining workers enjoy civil-service-like job-security. This is forcing it to pursue a toxic strategy : teaching old civil servants new tricks while at the same time putting new hires on short-term contracts. Yet the problem is not confined to France. And suicide is only the tip of an iceberg of work-related unhappiness. The most obvious reason for the rise in unhappiness is the recession, which is destroying jobs at a startling rate and spreading anxiety throughout the workforce. But the recession is also highlighting longer-term problems. Unhappiness seems to be particularly common in car companies, which suffer from global overcapacity, and telecoms companies, which are being strongly impacted by a technological revolution. A second source of misery is the drive to improve productivity, which is typically accompanied by an obsession with measuring performance. Giant retailers use "workforce management" software to monitor how many seconds it takes to scan the goods in a grocery cart, and then reward the most diligent workers with prime working hours. The public sector, particularly in Britain, is brimming with inspectorates and performance targets. Taylorism , which Charlie Chaplin mocked so memorably in "Modern Times", has spread from the industrial to the post-industrial economy. In Japan some firms even monitor whether their employees smile frequently enough at customers. A more subtle problem lies in the mixed messages that companies send about loyalty and commitment. Many firms—particularly successful ones—demand extraordinary dedication from their employees. Some provide fringe benefits that are intended to make the office feel like a second home. But companies also reserve the right to trim their workforce at the first sign of trouble. Most employees understand that their firms do not feel much responsibility to protect jobs. But they nevertheless find it wrenching to leave a post that has consumed so much of their lives.

The number of city schools put on a list for strict scrutiny by the state for poor academic performance went up slightly this year and the number of city schools taken off the list by showing improvement dropped, the state"s commissioner of education announced yesterday. Ten city schools—now at risk of being shut down—were added to the list of Schools Under Registration Review, known as SURR, bringing the total in the city m 40. Statewide. 61 schools are under review, said the commissioner, Richard Mills. The addition of 10 city schools reverses what had been a trend in the past few years: the number of schools on the list had been falling. There were 55 schools in 2003, 46 in 2004 and 35 last year, an all-time low. But this year a new factor was at work: The state raised the level of performance required to pass its standards. In addition, 6 of the 10 newly named schools are middle schools—and those schools have for years confounded educators by resisting the improvements that have worked in lower grades and even in high schools. Three city schools were removed from the list this year for improvement in academic performance, but that number was significantly lower than the number removed in each of the past several years. For instance, 16 schools were taken off the list last year. Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein observed that the number of endangered schools still remains at a near-record low. "Nevertheless, we cannot accept failing performance by any of our schools for any reason", he said. "If a school proves incapable of providing a high-quality education m our students despite efforts to improve it, it will be closed". He said 8 of the 40 schools that have been on the list were scheduled m be closed this year and 5 more will be closed next year. The state also expanded its review process for the first time this year m District 75, which covers special education schools, and one District 75 school, Public School 12 in the Bronx, was put on the list. Despite the additions, Mr. Mills said he was pleased. "I think it"s impressive since we have been rinsing the bar", he said. "The city has essentially been staying ahead of a moving locomotive". Elsewhere in the state, three schools in Buffalo and two in Syracuse were added to the list. The 10 New York City schools on the list are Legacy School for Integrated Studies in Manhattan; P.S. 220, P.S. 12, Junior High School 123 and Middle School 302 in the Bronx; J.H.S. 265. J.H.S. 57, M.S. 143, Intermediate School 291 and P.S. 12 in Brooklyn. The three schools removed from the list are P.S. 140 in the Bronx. Repertory Company High School in Manhattan and EBC/ENY High School for Public Safety and Law in Brooklyn.

Long before Man lived on the Earth, there were fishes, reptiles, birds, insects, and some mammals. Although some of these animals were ancestors of kinds living today, others are now extinct, that is, they have no descendants alive now.【C1】______. Very occasionally the rocks show impression of skin, so that, apart from color, we can build up a reasonably accurate picture of an animal that died millions of years ago. That kind of rock in which the remains are found tells us much about the nature of the original land, often of the plants that grew on it, and even of its climate. 【C2】______.Nearly all of the fossils that we know were preserved in rocks formed by water action, and most of these are of animals that lived in or near water. Thus it follows that there must be many kinds of mammals, birds, and insects of which we know nothing. 【C3】______. There were also crablike creatures, whose bodies were covered with a horny substance. The body segments each had two pairs of legs, one pair for walking on the sandy bottom, the other for swimming. The head was a kind of shield with a pair of compound eyes, often with thousands of lenses. They were usually an inch or two long but some were 2 feet. 【C4】______ . Of these, the ammonites are very interesting and important. They have a shell composed of many chambers, each representing a temporary home of the animal. As the young grew larger it grew a new chamber and sealed off the previous one. Thousands of these can be seen in the rocks on the Dorset Coast. 【C5】______. About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over and most of the groups died out. The mammals quickly developed, and we can trace the evolution of many familiar animals such as the elephant and horse. Many of the later mammals though now extinct, were known to primitive man and were featured by him in cave paintings and on bone carvings. [A]The shellfish have a long history in the rock and many different kinds are known. [B]Nevertheless, we know a great deal about many of them because their bones and shells have been preserved in the rocks as fossils, from them we can tell their size and shape, how they walked, the kind of food they ate. [C]The first animals with true backbones were the fishes, first known in the rocks of 375 million years ago. About 300 million years ago the amphibians, the animals able to live both on land and in water, appeared. They were giant, sometimes 8 feet long, and many of them lived in the swampy pools in which our coal seam, or layer is formed. The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles and for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea, and in the air. [D]The best index fossils tend to be marine creatures. These animals evolved rapidly and spread over large over large areas of the world. [E]The earliest animals whose remains have been found were all very simple kinds and lived in the sea. Later forms are more complex, and among these are the sea-lilies, relations of the star-fishes, which had long arms and were attached by a long stalk to the sea bed, or to rocks. [F]When an animal dies, the body, its bones, or shell, may often be carried away by streams into lakes or the sea and there get covered up by mud. If the animal lived in the sea its body would probably sink and be covered with mud. More and more mud would fall upon it until the bones or shell become embedded and preserved. [G]Many factors can influence how fossils are preserved in rocks. Remains of an organism may be replaced by minerals, dissolved by an acidic solution to leave only their impression, or simply reduced to a more stable form.

Historically, the European Union has not bothered with funding much basic scientific research. Such activities have mainly remained the preserve of national governments, not least because giving scientists free rein can lead to discoveries that not only make money but ultimately enhance military might. That attitude is now changing. The European Commission proposes to establish a European Research Council(ERC) that would spend a maximum of 12 billion($14 billion) over seven years on" blue skies" research. While the plans are being generally welcomed by Europe"s member states, their details are problematic. The proposed ERC is intended to make Europe more competitive. Europe has some first-class universities, scientific institutions and research organizations, But, the ERC"s proponents argue, their activities are fragmented, so they are not reaching their full potential. In America, teams from across the country compete with each other for grants from the National Science Foundation. The proposed ERC is modeled on this scheme, It would award grants to individual research teams for a specific project, solely on the basis of scientific merit judged by peer review, If the ERC were created, scientists from across Europe would compete with each other for funds, rather than merely competing with their fellow countrymen, as hap pens at present. This compares with the limited funding for basic research that currently exists in the EU, which places its emphasis on collaboration between researchers. It is open only to researchers in a narrow range of disciplines chosen by the European Parliament and the commission. The ERC would be quite different, placing its emphasis on competition between researchers and leaving scientists themselves to decide which areas of science to pursue. Helga Nowotny, who chairs the European Research Advisory Board—an advisory body to the commission—says that winning a grant from the ERC could come to be seen as unmistakable recognition of research excellence. The quality of European research needs to be stepped up a notch. Between 1980 and 2003, Europe had 68 Nobel laureates in medicine, physics and chemistry compared with 154 in America. With competition from China and India, Europe"s share could fall further. One of the reasons for Europe"s relatively weak performance is thought to be a lack of genuine competition between Europe"s researchers. Another is its poor ability to attract young people into a research career. Recent estimates suggest that Europe needs an extra 700,000 researchers if it is to meet its overall target of raising spending (private, national and EU) on research and development to 3% of GDP by 2010. Many young scientists leave Europe for America once they have finished their training. Dr. Nowotny says the ERC could help here too. It could establish a scheme to give young researchers the opportunity to follow their own ideas and become independent at an earlier stage in their careers, encouraging talent to stay in Europe. The crucial issue now is whether the ERC will be able to set its own research agenda, free from the interference and bureaucracy of the commission and influence of member states. Last month, 22 leading European scientists charged with shaping the ERC"s scientific strategy met for the first time to start hammering out a charter and constitution. Serious concerns remain over the legal structure of the body. The final decision on the ERC"s legal form, on a date yet unspecified, rests with the European Parliament and member states in the European Council. If both are genuine in their support for the ERC and Europe"s aim of becoming more competitive, then they must find a way of keeping the ERC free from political interference. Europe would benefit from a competition for its best researchers which rewards scientific excellence. A quasi-competition that recognizes how many votes each member state is allotted would be pointless.

There was little change in him.

Whether we want it or not we are all greedy by nature. From the moment we are【C1】______and to the last day of our life we【C2】______have an unsatisfied hunger to【C3】______more than we have. Greed is a way for us to take care of our needs and to make sure that we have enough in life. If you do not【C4】______me then look at any child Children and especially babies do not have any social norms that they have to【C5】______. All of their desires are engraved in them from birth. No matter【C6】______it is a toy or extra 5 minutes of hugging with Mommy or Daddy, children do not want to【C7】______it with anybody. As parents we teach them that it is good to share and not to be【C8】______, however generosity does not come【C9】______. It is a fact that generous people are【C10】______in life, they feel that their life is more meaningful and they【C11】______it more We often【C12】______generosity with money and wealth; however this is just the【C13】______of the iceberg. Being generous does not only【C14】______leaving a big tip at a restaurant or buying the most expensive gifts for Christmas. Generosity is all about giving and you can give your time, attention, love, help, and a smile【C15】______you can give money and【C16】______. Cultivating the spirit of generosity can be an eye-opening【C17】______for you because you will see in how many areas of your life you weren"t generous enough.【C18】______you open your heart to the world around you and start giving more to it then you will【C19】______how much more you will receive【C20】______.