You have just come back from the U.S. as a member of a Sino-American cultural exchange program. Write a letter to your American colleague to 1)express your thanks for his/her warm reception; 2)welcome him/her to visit China in due course. You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Zhang Wei" instead. Do not write your address.

I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room-a women"s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don"t talk to them. This man quickly nodded in agreement. He gestured toward his wife and said, "She"s the talker in our family. " The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. "It"s true," he explained. " When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn"t keep the conversation going, we"d spend the whole evening in silence. " This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to taXk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage. The pattern was observed by political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late 1970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman reports in her new book Divorce Talk that most of the women she interviewed-but only a few of the men-gave lack of communication as the reason for their divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, that amounts to millions of cases in the United States every year-a virtual epidemic of failed conversation. In my own research, complaints from women about their husbands most often focused not on tangible inequities such as having given up the chance for a career to accompany a husband to his, or doing far more than their share of daily life-support work like cleaning, cooking and social arrangements. Instead, they focused on communication: "He doesn"t listen to me. " "He doesn"t talk to me. " I found, as Hacker observed years before, that most wives want their husbands to be, first and foremost, conversational partners, but few husbands share this expectation of their wives. In short, the image that best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk.

"Sustainability" has become a popular word these days, but to Ted Ning, the concept will always have personal meaning. Having endured a painful period of unsustainability in his own life made it clear to him that sustainability-oriented values must be expressed through everyday action and choice. Ning recalled spending a confusing year in the late 1990s selling insurance. He"d been through the dot-corn boom and burst and, desperate for a job, signed on with a Boulder agency. It didn"t go well. "It was a really bad move because that"s not my passion," says Ning, whose dilemma about the job translated, predictably, into a lack of sales. " I was miserable. I had so much anxiety that I would wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling. I had no money and needed the job. Everyone said, "Just wait, you"ll turn the comer, give it some time. ""

Inthissection,youareaskedtowriteanessaybasedonthefollowingchart.Inyourwriting,youshould1)interpretthechartand2)giveyourcomments.Youshouldwriteatleast150words.

单选题Brierley"s book has the______of being both informative and readable.

单选题Picasso was an artist who fundamentally changed the______of art for later generations.

单选题His parents died when he was young, so he was______up by his grandma.

单选题Tens of thousands of 18-year-olds will graduate this year and be handed meaningless diplomas. These diplomas won"t look any different from those awarded their luckier classmates. Their validity will be questioned only when their employers discover that these graduates are semiliterate(半文盲). Eventually a fortunate few will find their way into educational-repair shops — adult-literacy programs, such as the one where I teach basic grammar and writing. There, high-school graduates and high-school dropouts pursuing graduate-equivalency certificates will learn the skills they should have learned in school. They will also discover they have been cheated by our educational system. I will never forget a teacher who got the attention of one of my children by revealing the trump card of failure. Our youngest, a world-class charmer, did little to develop his intellectual talents but always got by. Until Mrs. Stifter. Our son was high-school senior when he had her for English. "He sits in the back of the room talking to his friends," she told me. "Why don"t you move him to the front row?" I urged, believing the embarrassment would get him to settle down. Mrs. Stifter said, "I don"t move seniors. I flunk (使......不及格)them." Our son"s academic life flashed before my eyes. No teacher had ever threatened him. By the time I got home I was feeling pretty good about this. It was a radical approach for these times, but well, why not? "She"s going to flunk you," I told my son. I did not discuss it any further. Suddenly English became a priority(头等重要)in his life. He finished out the semester with an A. I know one example doesn"t make a case, but at night I see a parade of students who are angry for having been passed along until they could no longer even pretend to keep up. Of average intelligence or better, they eventually quit school, concluding they were too dumb to finish. "I should have been held back," is a comment I hear frequently. Even sadder are those students who are high-school graduates who say to me after a few weeks of class. "I don"t know how I ever got a high-school diploma." Passing students who have not mastered the work cheats them and the employers who expect graduates to have basic skills. We excuse this dishonest behavior by saying kids can"t learn if they come from terrible environments. No one seems to stop to think that most kids don"t put school first on their list unless they perceive something is at risk. They"d rather be sailing. Many students I see at night have decided to make education a priority. They are motivated by the desire for a better job or the need to hang on to the one they"ve got. They have a healthy fear of failure. People of all ages can rise above their problems, but they need to have a reason to do so. Yong people generally don"t have the maturity to value education in the same way my adult students value it. But fear of failure can motivate both.

单选题Although the new library service has been very successful, its future is______certain.

单选题"The word "protection" is no longer taboo(禁忌语)." This short sentence, uttered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy late last month, may have launched a new era in economic history. Why? For decades, Western leaders have believed that lowering trade barriers and tariffs was a natural good. Doing so, they reasoned, would lead to greater economic efficiency and productivity, which in turn would improve human welfare. Championing free trade thus became a moral, not just an economic cause. These leaders, of course, weren"t acting out of unselfishness. They knew their economies were the most competitive, so they"d profit most from liberalization. And developing countries feared that their economies would be swamped by superior Western productivity. Today, however, the tables have turned—though few acknowledge it. The Western continues to preach free trade, but practices it less and less. Asia, meanwhile, continues to plead for special protection but practices more and more free trade. That"s why Sarkozy"s words were so important: he finally injected some honesty into the trade debate. The truth is that large parts of the West are losing faith in free trade, though few leaders admit it. Some economists are more honest. Paul Krugman is one of the few willing to acknowledge that protectionist arguments are returning. In the short run, there will be winners and losers under free trade. This, of course, is what capitalism is all about. But more and more of these losers will be in the West. Economists in the developed world used to love quoting Joseph Schumpeter, who said that "creative destruction" was an essential part of capitalist growth. But they always assumed that destruction would happen over there. When Western workers began losing jobs, suddenly their leaders began to lose faith in their principles. Things have yet to reverse completely. But there"s clearly a negative trend in Western theory and practice. A little hypocrisy(虚伪)is not in itself a serious problem. The real problem is that Western governments continue to insist that they retain control of the key global economic and financial institutions while drifting away from global liberalization. Look at what"s happening at the IMF(International Monetary Fund). The Europeans have demanded that they keep the post of managing director. But all too often, Western officials put their own interests above everyone else"s when they dominate these global institutions. The time has therefore come for the Asians — who are clearly the new winners in today"s global economy—to provide more intellectual leadership in supporting free trade. Sadly, they have yet to do so. Unless Asians speak out, however, there"s a real danger that Adam Smith"s principles, which have brought so much good to the world, could gradually die. And that would leave all of us worse off, in one way or another.

单选题My ______ would really trouble me if I wore a fur coat.

单选题To my surprise, at yesterday"s meeting he again______the plan that had been disapproved a week before.

单选题Americans don"t like to lose wars. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars—the kind that test patriotism and courage—and those are the kind at which the U.S. excels. But other struggles test those qualities too. What else was the Great Depression or the space race or the construction of the railroads? If American indulge in a bit of flag—when the job is done, they earned it. Now there is a similar challenge. Global warming. The steady deterioration(恶化)of the very climate of this very planet is becoming a war of the first order, and by any measure, the U.S. is losing. Indeed, if America is fighting at all, it"s fighting on the wrong side. The U.S. produces nearly a quarter of the world"s greenhouse gases each year and has stubbornly made it clear that it doesn"t intend to do a whole lot about it. Although 174 nations approved the admittedly flawed Kyoto accords to reduce carbon levels, the U.S. walked away from them. There are vague promises of manufacturing fuel from herbs or powering cars with hydrogen. But for a country that tightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, the U.S. is taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It"s hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of a country"s coasts and farms, the health of its people and stability of its economy. The rub is, if the vast majority of people increasingly agree that climate change is a global emergency, there"s far less agreement on how to fix it. Industry offers its plans, which too often would fix little. Environmentalists offer theirs, which too often amount to native wish lists that could weaken American"s growth. But let"s assume that those interested parties and others will always bent the table and will always demand that their voices be heard and that their needs be addressed. What would an aggressive, ambitious, effective plan look like — one that would leave the U.S. both environmentally safe and economically sound ? Halting climate change will be far harder. One of the more conservative plans for addressing the problem calls for a reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon emissions over the next 52 year. And yet by devising a consistent strategy that mixes and blends pragmatism(实用主义)with ambition, the U.S. can, without major damage to the economy, help halt the worst effects of climate change and ensure the survival of its way of life for future generations. Money will do some of the work, but what"s needed most is will. "I"m not saying the challenge isn"t almost overwhelming," says Fred Krupp. "But this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before."

单选题You haven"t heard all the facts so don"t______to conclusions.

单选题The first glasses of Coca-Cola were drunk in 188The drink was first______by a US chemist called John Pemberton.

单选题The high living standards of the US cause its present population to______25 percent of the world"s oil.

单选题The poor lady was too______and distressed to talk about the tragedy.

单选题Whatever happened to the death of newspapers? A year ago the end seemed near. The recession threatened to remove the advertising and readers that had not already fled to the Internet. Newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle were chronicling their own doom. America"s Federal trade commission launched a round of talks about how to save newspapers. Should they become charitable corporations? Should the state subsidize them? It will hold another meeting soon. But the discussions now seem out of date. In much of the world there is little sign of crisis. German and Brazilian papers have shrugged off the recession. Even American newspapers, which inhabit the most troubled corner of the global industry, have not only survived but often returned to profit. Not the 20% profit margins that were routine a few years ago, but profit all the same. It has not been much fun. Many papers stayed afloat by pushing journalists overboard. The American Society of News Editors reckons that 12,500 newsroom jobs have gone since 2007. Readers are paying more for slimmer products. Some papers even had the nerve to refuse delivery to distant suburbs. Yet these desperate measures have proved the right ones and, sadly for many journalists, they can be pushed further. Newspapers are becoming more balanced business, which a healthier mix of revenues from readers and advertisers. American papers have long been highly unusual in their reliance on ads. Fully 87% of their revenues came from advertising in 2008, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development(OECD). In Japan the proportion is 35%. Not surprisingly, Japanese newspapers are much more stable. The whirlwind that swept through newsrooms harmed everybody, but much of the damage has been concentrated in areas where newspapers are least distinctive. Car and film reviewers have gone. So have science and general business reporters. Foreign bureaus have been savagely cut off. Newspapers are less complete as a result. But completeness is no longer a virtue in the newspaper business.

单选题Should a leader strive to be loved or feared? This question, famously posed by Machiavelli, lies at the heart of Joseph Nye"s new book. Mr. Nye, a former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and one-time chairman of America"s National Intelligence Council, is best known for promoting the idea of "soft power", based on persuasion and influences, as a counterpoint to "hard power", based on coercion(强迫)and force. Having analyzed the use of soft and hard power in policies and diplomacy in his previous books, Mr. Nye has now turned his attention to the relationship between power and leadership, in both the political and business spheres. Machiavelli, he notes, concluded that "one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved." In short, hard power is preferable to soft power. But modern leadership theories have come to the opposite conclusion. The context of leadership is changing, they observe, and the historical emphasis on hard power is becoming outdated. In modern companies and democracies, power is increasingly diffused and traditional hierarchies(等级制)are being undermined, making soft power ever more important. But that does not mean coercion should now take a back seat to persuasion, Mr. Nye argues. Instead, he advocates a synthesis of these two views. The conclusion of The Powers to Lead, his survey of the theory of leadership, is that a combination of hard and soft power, which he calls "smart power", is the best approach. The domination theoretical model of leadership at the moment is, apparently, the "transformational leadership pattern". Anyone allergic(反感)to management term will already be running for the exit, but Mr. Nye has performed a valuable service in rounding up and summarizing the various academic studies and theories of leadership into a single, slim volume. He examines different approaches to leadership, the morality of leadership and how the wider context can determine the effectiveness of a particular leader. There are plenty of anecdotes and examples, both historical and contemporary, political and corporate. Ales, leadership is a slippery subject, and as he depicts various theories, even Mr. Nye never quite nails the jerry to the wall. He is at his most interesting when discussing the moral aspects of leadership - in particular, the question of whether it is sometimes necessary for good leaders to lie - and he provides a helpful 12-point summary of his conclusions. A recurring theme is that as circumstances change, different sorts of leaders are required, a leader who thrives in one environment may struggle in another, and vice versa. Ultimately that is just a fancy way of saying that leadership offers no easy answers.

单选题Williams had not been there during the_____moments when the kidnapping had taken place.