Those of us hurrying to finish our taxes by tomorrow"s deadline will probably be subjected to thoughts of the I.R.S. (Internal Revenue Service) as an all-powerful bully. But the truth is, the government is not always a match for the tax advisors of wealthy people, so a lot of taxes will go unpaid at the top of the income scale. Lawyers who represent high-income taxpayers earn more than 10 times what senior government lawyers do—an obvious disadvantage for the government agencies in attracting and retaining top talent. The lawyers who write our tax rules are overworked and sometimes inexperienced, so that they leave loopholes that are exploited by more experienced private lawyers. And the government always loses cases which it should win, and provides private lawyers with precedents. As this vicious cycle shows, skimping(节约) on tax administration is a false economy. Instead, if we substantially increase government salaries and staffing levels, we can raise more revenue, with lower tax rates and less waste. Four reforms should be adopted immediately. First, the government should focus on hiring talented young lawyers, since the pay disparity with the private sector is narrower for them. These efforts will be more effective if Congress helps new graduates repay student loans, which often are more than $100,000. A loan repayment program would be a powerful recruiting device. Second, the government should tap another promising talent pool—recent retirees from private practice—to mentor young lawyers. The salary gap is less of an issue for retirees, and the opportunity to give back to the tax system can be quite appealing. Third, the government should retain a small team of a dozen top tax lawyers at salaries closer to the market rate. They can serve as a rapid reaction force, deciding whether to shut down a new aggressive strategy immediately or to let it be evaluated through usual government channels. Fourth, the government should retain private lawyers to help with high-priority projects. An important constraint is that lawyers who represent private clients may view it as a conflict to help the government. But this is not always true. Through bar associations, private lawyers already volunteer to review proposed changes in the tax law and offer ways to improve them. Tax academics can also be a valuable and conflict-free source of expertise, since they ordinarily do not represent clients. And some tax litigators(诉讼律师) may view it as a prestigious opportunity and a patriotic service to represent the government in a tax case that could set an important precedent. The tax system can be only as strong as the people who run it, so the government has to recruit and retain the most promising talent. A tax system can be fair and efficient only when it is administered soundly.

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1.describethedrawingbriefly,2.explainitsintendedmeaning,andthen3.giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneadyontheANSWERSHEET.(20points)

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

That low moaning sound in the background just might be the Founding Fathers protesting from beyond the grave. They have been doing it when George Bush, at a breakfast of religious leaders, scorched the Democrats for failing to mention God in their platform and declaimed that a President needs to believe in the Almighty. What about the constitutional ban on "religious test(s)" for public office? The Founding Fathers would want to know. What about Tom Jefferson"s conviction that it is Possible for a nonbeliever to be a moral person, "find(ing) incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise"? Even George Washington must shudder in his sleep to hear the constant emphasis on "Judeo-Christian values". It was he who wrote, "We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land...every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart". George Bush should know better than to encourage the theocratic ambitions of the Christian right. The "wall of separation" the Founding Fathers built between church and state is one of the best defenses freedom has ever had. Or have we already forgotten why the Founding Fathers put it up? They had seen enough religious intolerance in the colonies: Quaker women were burned at the stake in Puritan Massachusetts; Virginians could be jailed for denying the Bible"s authority. No wonder John Adams once described the Judeo-Christian tradition as "the most bloody religion that ever existed", and that the Founding Fathers took such pains to keep the hand that holds the musket separate from the one that carries the cross. There was another reason for the separation of church and state, which no amount of pious ranting can expunge: not all the Founding Fathers believed in the same God, or in any God at all. Jefferson was a renowned doubter, urging his nephew to "question with boldness even the existence of a God". John Adams was at least a skeptic, as were of course the revolutionary firebrands Tom Paine and Ethan Allen. Naturally, they designed a republic in which they themselves would have a place. Yet another reason argues for the separation of church and state. If the Founding Fathers had one overarching aim, it was to limit the power not of the churches but of the state. They were deeply concerned, as Adams wrote, that "government shall be considered as having in it nothing more mysterious or divine than other arts or sciences". Surely the Republicans, committed as they are to "limited government", ought to honor the secular spirit that has limited our government from the moment of its birth.

Parents'BurdenWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)interpretitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

You are going to read a text about Gold-Medal Workouts, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list A—F for each numbered subheading (41—45). There is one extra example which you do not need to use. Drawing on biomechanics and other sports science, Olympic hopefuls target just the right muscles and moves. Olympians of yesteryear shared the same goal, but they would hardly recognize today"s training techniques. To achieve to Olympian ideal of "faster, higher, stronger," coaches now realize, athletes don"t have to train more but they do have to train smarter. That"s why, these days, cross-country (Nordic) skiers kneel on skateboards and tug on pulleys to haul themselves up a ramp. By analyzing every motion that goes into a ski jump or a luge run, the science of biomechanics breaks down events into their component parts and determines which movements of which muscles are the key to a superlative performance. Knowing that is crucial for a simple hut, to many coaches and trainers, unexpected reason: it turns out that although training for general conditioning improves fitness, the best way to boost performance is by working the muscles and practicing the moves that will be used in competition. It"s called sport-specific training. (41) Ways to work the right muscles and train the right patterns of movement. Sport-specific training doesn"t have to mean running the actual course or performing the exact event. There are other ways to work the right muscles and train the right pattern of movement. Doing situps on a Swiss ball, for instance, develops torso control as well as strength. The Finnish ice-hockey team recently added acrobatics to its training regime because it helps players to balance on the ice, says head coach Raimo Summanen. Performance-enhancing strategies. The advances in physiology that have revolutionized training are giving sports scientists a better under-standing of how to improve strength, power, speed and both aerobic and anaerobic fitness: (42) Training the start-up. Speed is partly genetic. A star sprinter is probably born with a preponderance of fast twitch muscle fibers, which fire repeatedly with only microsecond rests in between. Speed training therefore aims to recruit more fast-twitch fibers and increase the speed of nerve signals that command muscles to move. (43) Strength reflects the percentage of muscle fibers the body can recruit for a given movement. "Someone with pure strength can recruit 90 percent of these fibers, while someone else recruits only 50 percent", says the USOC"s Davis. (44) Developing anaerobic fitness. Anaerobic fitness keeps the muscles moving even when the heart can"t provide enough oxygen. To postpone the point when acid begins to accumulate, or at least train the body to tolerate it, Jim Walker has the speed skaters he works with push themselves beyond what they need to do in competition. Power is strength with speed. "One of the biggest changes in strength training is that we"re getting away from pure strength and emphasizing power, or explosive strength," says USOC strength-and- conditioning coordinator Kevin Ebel. (45) Difficulties under way. It"s still difficult to persuade coaches to let sports scientists mess with their athletes. To overcome such resistance, the USOC"s Peter Davis has set up "performance-enhancing teams" where coaches and scientists put their heads together and apply the best science to training. Come February, the world will see how science fared in its attempt to mold athletic excellence.A. Zach Lund races skeleton (a head-first, belly-down sled race), in which the start is crucial. He has to sprint in a bent-over position (pushing his sled along the track), then hop in without slowing the sled. "You have to go from a hard sprint to being really calm in order to go down the track well," says Lund. To improve his speed he does leg presses while lying on his back, or leg curls on his stomach (bringing his foot to his backside).B. Despite the finding that drafting reduces the demand on the heart of a speed skater and generally improves performance, for instance, most skaters still prefer to go out fast and first.C. Sprinters who skate 500 meters in the Olympics, for instance, power through multiple 300 meters, and do it faster than they skate the 500. By raising the anaerobic threshold, the training gives skaters a better shot at exploding with a sprint at the finish.D. Luge, for instance, requires precise control of infinitesimal muscle movements: "Overcorrect on a turn," says driver Mark Grimmette, "and you"re dead". To achieve that precise control, he and his doubles partner, Brian Martin, devote a good chunk of their training time to exercises on those squishy rubber spheres called Swiss balls.E. Aerobic fitness is hockey star Cammi Granato"s goal one autumn morning as she pedals a stationary bike with sweaty fury at the USOC training center in Lake Placid, New York. When Granato finally staggers off the bike and crumples onto the padded platform, she"s had a tougher workout than in any hockey period—which is exactly the point.F. The thigh"s quadriceps, for instance, consist of millions of fibers organized into what are called motor units. When a speed skater pushes off the ice, he recruits a certain percentage of them to fire; the others are relaxing and so do not contribute to the movement.

BPart CDirections: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese./B

McDonald"s, Greggs, KFC and Subway are today named as the most littered brands in England as Keep Britain Tidy called on fast-food companies to do more to tackle customers who drop their wrappers and drinks cartons in the streets. Phil Barton, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, 【C1】______ its new Dirty Pig campaign, said it was the first time it had investigated which【C2】______made up "littered England" and the same names appeared again and again. "We 【C3】______litterers for dropping this fast food litter 【C4】______the first place but also believe the result have pertinent messages for the fast food 【C5】______. McDonald"s, Greggs, KFC and Subway need to do more to【C6】______littering by their customers." He recognized efforts made by McDonald"s,【C7】______ placing little bins and increasing litter patrols, but its litter remained "all too prevalent". All fast food chains should reduce【C8】______packaging, he added. Companies could also reduce prices【C9】______ those who stayed to eat food on their premises, offer money-off vouchers or other 【C10】______for those who returned packaging and put more bins at 【C11】______points in local streets, not just outside their premises. A 【C12】______ for McDonald"s said: "We do our best. Obviously we ask all our customers to dispose of litter responsibly." Trials of more extensive, all-day litter patrols were 【C13】______in Manchester and Birmingham. KFC said it took its【C14】______for litter management "very seriously", and would introduce a programme to reduce packaging【C15】______ many products. Subway said that it worked hard to【C16】______ the impact of litter on communities, 【C17】______ it was "still down to the【C18】______customer to dispose of their litter responsibly". Greggs said it recognized the "continuing challenge for us all", 【C19】______having already taken measures to help【C20】______the issue.

The right to a trial by jury is a fundamental part of the United States legal system. It is a right firmly rooted in our democratic tradition. The jury system provides a buffer between the complex and often inflexible legal system and the average citizen on trial. The right to be judged by a jury is a right that most Americans feel very strongly about. However, due to recent jury decisions, some critics are questioning the value of this institution. Our jury system is by no means flawless. It is subject to constant scrutiny and debate concerning its merit and its downfalls. As is true in all institutions, juries are capable of making mistakes. Psychological studies have been done on many aspects of jury behavior. Political scientists are also intrigued by juries and the manner in which they arrive at important decisions. Although most Americans believe in the jury system, there has been considerable controversy surrounding it lately. The public has become even more concerned about this institution recently. The outcomes of the Rodney King, the O.J. Simpson, and the Menendez brothers trials in Los Angeles and the dissatisfaction that followed the jury"s decisions are three examples of instances when the effectiveness of the jury system has come under fierce attack. From the public reaction to these decisions and others like them, it is very clear that the way in which juries reach their decisions is often as important to the American people as it is to the specific person on trial. Many people feel that the average jurist is not equipped to make the kinds of decisions they are faced with. These critics" suggestions range from restructuring the system up to tally eliminating it. Most average Americans, I believe, feel that the right to a jury trial is a fundamental one, and its guarantees should be honored. These people would argue that laws are inflexible. They cannot deal with the individual circumstances in each case, but juries can take these into account. Still others believe that juries are favorable because they reflect the morals and values of the community they come from. Indeed, many proponents of the jury support the system because of a particular kind of jury bias, the tendency for jurors, to place justice above the law. Opponents of the system argue that juries are uneducated in legal procedures and should not be given the type of responsibility they have traditionally had. These people also argue that juries are biased. In fact, the psychological literature provides many examples of this bias. Jurors are less likely to punish a sad or distressed defendant, as opposed to a joyful one, apparently because the defendant is already being punished emotionally. Some opponents say that although juries are instructed not to pay attention to the media, they are more easily influenced by the news than judges. Critics of the jury system also point out that juries are expensive and are often unable to reach an agreement. They argue that the decision making should be left up to the people who know the law, judges and lawyers. In between these two extremes are those people who agree with the jury system as a whole, but feel that some changes need to be implemented to improve its effectiveness. These people suggest that juries receive instruction prior to hearing testimony. They argue that this would improve the system by providing some working legal knowledge for the jury as well as giving them an idea of what they are to listen for. Research has shown that exposing jurors to the laws involved in their decision making resulted in significantly fewer verdicts of guilty. This finding suggests that lawyers and judges should have the responsibility of insuring that the jury is adequately informed of the legal issues at hand and the laws available to handle those issues. On the whole, though, I feel that the American guarantee of trial by jury is a valuable one. I do feel, however, that in order to improve its utility, judges and lawyers need to accept the responsibility for educating the jury on relevant legal issues.

My father was quarrelling with the lawyer; the former was cool, and the latter was furious with anger.

The World Wide Web has been steadily creating a widespread surge in social capital through E-mail conversations, chat rooms, newsgroups, and e-zones. These ongoing connections are not an underground phenomenon, but a mainstream movement that is rapidly overwhelming traditional business models, according to the authors of another recent book, The Cluetrain Manifesto. "Our longing for the Web is rooted in the deep resentment we feel towards being managed," writes co-author David Weinberger, a columnist and commentator on the Web"s effect on business. The Cluetrain Manifesto argues that knowledge workers are finding it intolerable that their employers require them to speak in artificial "business voices". The Web has become the ideal alternative: a public place where people can converse in their "authentic voices", outside of an organization"s official communications channel. Some of the social capital generated by these independent Web conversations is being used by its creators to circumvent the authority of corporations. For example, a car owner who thinks he was overcharged for service to his vehicle posts an inquiry to a newsgroup for people who own the same model of ear. Group members respond with their advice and personal experiences of getting their own cars serviced. The newsgroup is not owned or controlled by the car company. In fact, a mechanic employed by the car company participates in the conversation, offering his knowledge of what charges are reasonable and how company policies vary from dealer to dealer, and even suggesting which dealerships offer the best service. According to co-author Rick Levine, the mechanic "was speaking for his company in a new way: honestly, openly, probably without his boss"s explicit sanction." In effect, an employee of the company independently joined a network of consumers to directly help satisfy a customer. "Companies need to harness this sort of caring and let its viral enthusiasm be communicated in employees" own voices," writes Levine, former Web Architect for Sun Microsystem"s Java Software group. As more and more people work online and form Web relationships, shared knowledge could become increasingly personal in cyberspace. Whether business joins in the conversations or not, it seems likely that this fast-growing strain of social capital will remain valuable for those who help to create it.

The author of some forty novels, a number of plays, volumes of verse, historical, critical and autobiographical works, an editor and translator, Jack Lindsay is clearly an extraordinarily prolific writer— a fact which can easily obscure his very real distinction in some of the areas into which he has ventured.【F1】 His co-editorship of Vision in Sydney in the early 1920s, for example, is still felt to have introduced a significant period in Australian culture, while his study of Kickens written in 1930 is highly regarded. But of all his work it is probably the novel to which he has made his most significant contribution. Since 1916 when, to use his own words in Fanfrolico and after, he "reached bedrock," Lindsay has maintained a consistent Marxist viewpoint—【F2】 and it is this viewpoint which if nothing else has guaranteed his novels a minor but certainly not negligible place in modern British literature. Feeling that "the historical novel is a form that has a limitless future as a fighting weapon and as a cultural instrument", Lindsay first attempted to formulate his Marxist convictions in fiction mainly set in the past; particularly in his trilogy in English novels—1929, Lost Birthright, and Men of Forty-Eight(written in 1919, the Chartist and revolutionary uprisings in Europe).【F3】 Basically these works set out, with most success in the first volume, to vivify the historical traditions behind English Socialism and attempted to demonstrate that it stood, in Lindsay"s words, for the "true completion of the national destiny". 【F4】 After the war Lindsay continued to write mainly about the present—trying with varying degrees of success to come to terms with the unradical political realities of post-war England. 【F5】 In the series of novels known collectively as "The British War", and beginning with Betrayed Spring in 1933, it seemed at first as if his solution was simply to resort to more and more obvious authorial manipulation and heavy-handed didacticism. Fortunately, however, from Revolt of the Sons, this process was reversed, as Lindsay began to show an increasing tendency to ignore party solutions, to fail indeed to give anything but the most elementary political consciousness to his characters, so that in his latest(and what appears to be his last)contemporary novel, Choice of Times, his hero, Colin, ends on a note of desperation: "Everything must be different, I can"t live this way any longer. But how can I change it, how? " To his credit as an artist, Lindsay doesn"t give him any explicit answer.

Europe is desperate to succeed in business. Two years ago, the European Union"s Lisbon summit Set a goal of becoming the world"s leading economy by 2010. But success, as any new age executive coach might tell you, requires confronting the fear of failure. That is why Europe"s approach to bankruptcy urgently needs reform. In Europe, as in the United States, many heavily indebted companies are shutting up shop just as the economy begins to recover. Ironically, the upturn is often the moment when weak firms finally fail. But America"s failures have a big advantage over Europe"s weaklings: their country"s more relaxed approach to bankruptcy. In the United States the Chapter 11 law makes going bust an orderly and even routine process. Firms in trouble simply apply for breathing space from creditors. Managers submit a plan of reorganization to a judge, and creditors decide whether to give it a go or to come up with one of their own. Creditors have a say in whether to keep the firm running, or to liquidate it. If they keep it running, they often end up with a big chunk of equity, if not outright control. But shutting a bust European company is harder in two other ways. First, with no equivalent of Chapter 11, bankruptcy forces companies to stop trading abruptly. That damages the value of the creditors" potential assets, and may also cause havoc for customers. Second, a company that trades across the European Union will find that it has to abide by different bankruptcy laws in the 15 member states, whose courts and administrators may make conflicting and sometimes incompatible stipulations. The absence of provision for negotiations between companies and creditors increases the temptation for government to step in. When governments do not come to the rescue, the lack of clear rules can lead to chaos. As a result of all this, Europe"s teetering firms miss the chance to become more competitive by selling assets to others who might manage them more efficiently. Their sickly American rivals survive, transformed, to sweep the field. An opportunity now exists to think again about Europe"s approach to bankruptcy. The European Union is expected to issue a new directive on the subject in May. Germany has begun to update its insolvency law. And last year Britain produced a white paper saying that a rigid approach to bankruptcy could stifle the growth needed to meet Lisbon"s goals.

One of the misconceptions about elite sport is that great athletes have nothing in common with normal human beings.【C1】______they are seen as supermen who have【C2】______above the flaws and anxieties that【C3】______the lives of others. The superman misconception also【C4】______how we think about teams.【C5】______a team establishes a dynastic supremacy, instead of【C6】______that it is always in a state of constant change, we pretend it has a【C7】______collective personality. We turn the team into a superman. A winning team does not, in【C8】______, require everyone to play well all the time—or even any of the time. Sir Alex Ferguson【C9】______a deep truth when he said that in football you only need eight players to【C10】______well to win. The reality of team dynamics is much more【C11】______and interesting than superman theory allows. All teams, even the greatest, 【C12】______a range of characters, not all of them 【C13】______bulletproof. There are those who surf the wave as well as those who【C14】______the tide. From a【C15】______perspective, the challenge is to establish two【C16】______but overlapping majorities: a majority of strong characters who have the ability to【C17】______people with them, and a majority of players in form on any【C18】______day. Seen in that light, winning becomes partly a matter of【C19】______If you have a higher proportion of excellent players, who are likely to be in form more often, then the odds of eight playing well next Saturday【C20】______improve.

BSection II Reading Comprehension/B

Scholastic thinkers held a wide variety of doctrines in both philosophy and theology, the study of religion.【F1】 What gives unity to the whole Scholastic movement, the academic practice in Europe from the 9th to the 17th centuries, are the common aims, attitudes, and methods generally accepted by all its members. The chief concern of the Scholastics was not to discover new facts but to integrate the knowledge already acquired separately by Greek reasoning and Christian revelation. This concern is one of the most characteristic differences between Scholasticism and modern thought since the Renaissance. The basic aim of the Scholastics determined certain common attitudes, the most important of which was their conviction of the fundamental harmony between reason and revelation.【F2】 The Scholastics maintained that because the same God was the source of both types of knowledge and truth was one of his chief attributes, he could not contradict himself in these two ways of speaking. Any apparent opposition between revelation and reason could be traced either to an incorrect use of reason or to an inaccurate interpretation of the words of revelation. Because the Scholastics believed that revelation was the direct teaching of God, it possessed for them a higher degree of truth and certainty than did natural reason. In apparent conflicts between religious faith and philosophic reasoning, faith was thus always the supreme arbiter; the theologians decision overruled that of the philosopher. After the early 13th century, Scholastic thought emphasized more the independence of philosophy within its own domain.【F3】 Nonetheless, throughout the Scholastic period, philosophy was called the servant of theology, not only because the truth of philosophy was subordinated to that of theology, but also because the theologian used philosophy to understand and explain revelation. This attitude of Scholasticism stands in sharp contrast to the so-called double-truth theory of the Spanish-Arab philosopher and physician Averroes. His theory assumed that truth was accessible to both philosophy and Islamic theology but that only philosophy could attain it perfectly. The so-called truths of theology served, hence, as imperfect imaginative expressions for the common people of the authentic truth accessible only to philosophy. Averroes maintained that philosophic truth could even contradict, at least verbally, the teachings of Islamic theology. 【F4】 As a result of their belief in the harmony between faith and reason, the Scholastics attempted to determine the precise scope and competence of each of these faculties. Many early Scholastics, such as the Italian ecclesiastic and philosopher St. Anselm, did not clearly distinguish the two and were overconfident that reason could prove certain doctrines of revelation.【F5】 Later, at the height of the mature period of Scholasticism, the Italian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas worked out a balance between reason and revelation.

BSection III Writing/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) Nonverbal communication is hugely important: in any interaction with others; its importance is multiplied across cultures. This is because we tend to look for nonverbal cues when verbal messages are unclear or ambiguous, as they are more likely to be across cultures. (41)______. Low-context cultures like the United States and Canada tend to give relatively less emphasis to nonverbal communication. This does not mean that nonverbal communication does not happen, or that it is unimportant, but that people in these settings tend to place less importance on it than on the literal meanings of words themselves. In high-context settings such as Japan or Colombia, understanding the nonverbal components of communication is relatively more important to receiving the intended meaning of the communication as a whole. (42)______. For instance, it may be more socially acceptable in some settings in the United States for women to show fear, but not anger, and for men to display anger, but not fear. At the same time, interpretation of facial expressions across cultures is difficult. In China and Japan, for example, a facial expression that would be recognized around the world as conveying happiness may actually express anger or mask sadness, both of which are unacceptable to show overtly. (43)______. For a Westerner who understands smiles to mean friendliness and happiness, this smile may seem out of place and even cold, under the circumstances. Even though some facial expressions may be similar across cultures, their interpretations remain culture specific. It is important to understand something about cultural starting-points and values in order to interpret emotions expressed in cross-cultural interactions. (44)______. In a comparison of North American and French children on a beach, a researcher noticed that the French children tended to stay in a relatively small space near their parents, while US children ranged up and down a large area of the beach. (45)______. These examples of differences related to nonverbal communication are only the tip of the iceberg. Careful observation, ongoing study from a variety of sources, and cultivating relationships across cultures will all help develop the cultural fluency to work effectively with nonverbal communication differences.A. These differences of interpretation may lead to conflict. Suppose a Japanese person is explaining her absence from negotiations due to a death in her family. She may do so with a smile, based on her cultural belief that it is not appropriate to inflict the pain of grief on others.B. Another variable across cultures has to do with ways of relating to space. Crossing cultures, we encounter very different ideas about polite space for conversations and negotiations. North Americans tend to prefer a large amount of space, perhaps because they are surrounded by it in their homes and countryside. Europeans tend to stand more closely with each other when talking, and are accustomed to smaller personal spaces.C. Americans are serious about standing in lines, in accordance with their beliefs in democracy and the principle of "first come, first served". The French, on the other hand, have a practice of line jumping, that irritates many British and US Americans.D. Since nonverbal behavior arises from our cultural common sense, we use different systems of understanding gestures, posture, silence, spatial relations, emotional expression, touch, physical appearance, and other nonverbal cues. Cultures also attribute different degrees of importance to verbal and nonverbal behavior.E. The difference with space preferences is not that they exist, but the judgments that get attached to them. If someone is accustomed to standing or sitting very close when they are talking with another, they may see the other"s attempt to create more space as evidence of coldness, or a lack of interest.F. It is said that a German executive working in the United States became so upset with visitors to his office moving the guest chair to suit themselves that he had it bolted to the floor.G. Some elements of nonverbal communication are consistent across cultures. For example, research has shown that the emotions of enjoyment, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and surprise are expressed in similar ways by people around the world. Differences surface with respect to which emotions are acceptable to display in various cultural settings, and by whom.

【F1】 It is the world"s fourth-most-important food crop, after maize, wheat and rice, which provides more calories, more quickly, using less land and in a wider range of climates than any other plant. It is, of course, the potato. The United Nations has declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. It hopes that greater awareness of the merits of potatoes will contribute to the achievement of its Millennium Development Goals, by helping to alleviate poverty, improve food security and promote economic development. It is always the international year of this or month of that.【F2】 But the potato"s unusual history means it is well worth celebrating by readers of The Economist because the potato is intertwined with economic development, trade liberalisation and globalisation. Unlikely though it seems, the potato promoted economic development by underpinning the industrial revolution in England in the 19th century. It provided a cheap source of calories and was easy to cultivate, so it liberated workers from the land. Potatoes became popular in the north of England, as people there specialised in livestock farming and domestic industry, while farmers in the south(where the soil was more suitable)concentrated on wheat production.【F3】 By a happy accident, this concentrated industrial activity in the regions where coal was readily available, and a potato-driven population boom provided ample workers for the new factories. Friedrich Engels even declared that the potato was the equal of iron for its "historically revolutionary role". The potato promoted free trade by contributing to the abolition of Britain"s Corn Laws—the cause which prompted the founding of The Economist in 1843. The Corn Laws restricted imports of grain into the United Kingdom in order to protect domestic wheat producers.【F4】 Landowners supported the laws, since cheap imported grain would reduce their income, but industrialists opposed them because imports would drive down the cost of food, allowing people to spend more on manufactured goods. Ultimately it was not the eloquence of the arguments against the Corn Laws that led to their abolition—and more" s the pity. It was the tragedy of the Irish potato famine of 1845, in which 1 million Irish perished when the potato crop on which they subsisted succumbed to blight.【F5】 The need to import grain to relieve the situation in Ireland forced the government, which was dominated by landowners who backed the Corn Laws, to reverse its position. This paved the way for liberalisation in other areas, and free trade became British policy. As the Duke of Wellington complained at the time, "rotten potatoes have done it all."

Your family is going to spend the summer holiday in other place. You want to entrust your puppy to one of your friends. Write a letter to him including such points: (1) the purpose of writing the letter; (2) why you entrust him other than someone else: (3) your thanks. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. You do not need to write the address.