阅读理解Directions:In this part of the test，there will be 5 passages for you to read. Each passage is followed by 4 questions or unfinished statements, and each question or unfinished statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C and D. You are to decide on the best choice by blackening the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.Passage FourFrom beach balls, pool toys, and jump houses, inflatable technology takes a big step forward forits next frontier： space station. A new kind of tech will be aboard Space X’s eighth supply mission tothe International Space Station (ISS). A compressed living module will be delivered and attached to thestation where, in the void of space, it will expand into a new habitat for astronauts.Designed by Bigelow Aerospace, the inflatable space habitat is one area NASA is exploring forpotential deep space habitats and other advanced space missions.“The ‘ Bigelow Expandable Activity Module，or the BEAM, is an expandable habitat that will beused to investigate technology and understand the potential benefits of such habitats for human missionsto deep space，” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in a blog post. The habitats could be a wayto “dramatically increase” the space available for astronauts while also offering added protection fromthe dangers of space, like radiation and space debris, the NASA press release says.But how is an inflatable space station supposed to be a viable means of housing for space travelers?BEAMs are far more than balloon-like rooms where astronauts can take asylum. Technically, themodules don’t inflate — they expand, according to the company. And beyond just air, the habitats arereinforced with an internal metal structure. The outside is composed of multiple layers of materialincluding things like rubber and kevlar to protect form any speeding debris.Inside Space X’s Dragon spacecraft on the way to the ISS, the BEAM will be approximately 8 feetin diameter. It will expand once deployed in space to offer 565 cubic feet of space for astronauts. “It’llbe the first time human beings will actually step inside this expandable habitat in space,” formerastronaut George Zamka, who has worked for Bigelow Aerospace, told USA Today. “There won’t bethis sense of it being like a balloon. ”But astronauts won’t be getting inside the module for some time yet. The BEAM will be attachedto the Tranquility Node and deployed. Inside the module are a series of tools that will help the crew ofthe ISS monitor different aspects of the expandable area to see how it acts in space. The crew will watchheat, radiation, orbital debris, and provide information about the viability of using similar modules inthe future.The testing is scheduled to go on for a two-year time period, after which the module will bereleased and bum up in the atmosphere. NASA’s partnership with Bigelow fits Mr. Bolden’s desire tohelp grow a robust private sector industry to commercialize aspects of space — a process he sees as vitalif humans want to reach farther cosmic destinations. “ The world of low Earth orbit belongs toindustry,” Bolden said at a press conference in January 2015.

阅读理解Letter-writing goes back to thousands of years but heated up during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Historically (perhaps now) letters were indicators of status and breeding. Like conversation, they were used to manipulate, embellish, entertain, threaten, seduce and of course do business. On the way home from discovering America, Christopher Columbus got caught in a storm and his mind turned—as a good bourgeois parent—to his two sons. Who would pay their school fees if he came to a watery end? He picked up a quill and documented his accomplishments on the voyage for his Spanish patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, rolled up the letter in a wooden Madeira cask and threw it into the sea. This was not so much for posterity but rather what University of York professor William H. Sherman has called “a father’s desperate petition for the future support of his children.”The 18th century was strong on the epistolary book, which made authors’ quarrels especially amusing. Tobias Smollett wrote Travels Through France Italy (my favorite letter contains his description of French women: “As their faces are concealed under a false complexion, so their heads are covered with a vast load of false hair, frizzled at the forehead, so as exactly to resemble the woolly heads of the Guinea negroes”). His approach to anything foreign was considered so full of spleen by author Laurence Sterne that he was moved to write A Sentimental Journey. This satirical novel gives Smollett the name Smelfungus—a cantankerous man addicted to exaggeration, who talks of being “flay’d alive” by cannibals: “I’ll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world. You had better tell it, said I, to your physician.” Samuel Johnson, in referring to his own letters, claims “...his soul lies naked” but he had doubts about the truthfulness of others, writing that there was “no transaction which offers stronger temptations to fallacy and sophistication than epistolary intercourse.”How-to books abounded. Letters, apart from business ones, were seen as a feminine task, and templates addressed feminine problems. The New Academy of Complements, for example, published in 1671, titled the letter to be written by abandoned women “A Crack’t Virgin to Her Deceitful Friend.” Hand-writing is the motif. “Now you appear so foul, that nothing can be more monstrous; is this the fruit of your Promises and Vows... how comes it then to pass, that you forsake me, ruin my Reputation, and leave me to become the Map of Shame and Ignominy…” I long to use the Map of Shame bit but I suspect it was as unhelpful then as boiling bunnies is now.A Vanderbilt University study ways children taught cursive writing learn and express themselves better. If so, I have a few suggestions for our educators. How about letters “On Reprimanding a Person of Difference Without Incurring Hate Charges”, or “An Ailing Citizen to His Callous Minister of Health.” The possibilities are, sadly, limitless.

阅读理解When they marry, husbands and wives have well-developed health histories and well-established congenital and developmental propensities toward good and ill health. Substantial research suggests that, given the existing health propensity and health condition of an individual at a particular time, his or her probability of better or worse future health is affected by a variety of socially mediated factors that are subject to influence or manipulation by his or her spouse.Spouses can promote each other’s health by ameliorating psychological stress. A substantial literature develops strong evidence that psychological stress causes illness, increase mortality risk, and serves as an important mechanism that links socioeconomic characteristics to health and mortality. Stress-reducing mechanisms include removal of sources of stress, and management of stress by talking about it to a trusted other person, psychological treatment, physical exercise,recreation and other means. A spouse can provide or encourage all of these stress-reducing behaviors.Spouses also can promote each other’s health by providing each other with supportive social contact, and they can facilitate or inhibit each other’s social contact with supportive others. Evidence suggests that health is greatly advanced by supportive social contacts, including positive interaction with relatives, friends, coworkers and acquaintances. Recent experimental data shows that persons with more diverse social networks are more resistant to experimentally introduced upper respiratory viruses than persons with less diverse social networks.Spouses can also promote each other’s health by providing each other with money income, and they can help each other manage money income effectively. Money does not buy health directly, but it can be used to purchase goods and services that make good health more likely. These goods and services include nutritious food, a hygienic and safe environment, medical care, and amenities that reduce psychological stress. Unless estranged or unusually wealthy, husbands and wives almost always share their financial resources and purchase and consume many of these health-promoting goods and services jointly. In short, there are many ways in which spouses can influence each other’s probability of good health.

阅读理解Passage Four: Questions are based on the following passage

阅读理解One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded hit on Boxing Day 2004. The resulting tsunami devastated huge swaths of the Indian Ocean coastline and left an estimated quarter of a million people dead across Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Aid agencies quickly arrived to help battered and traumatised survivors. Mental health care was a massive part of the emergency response but the World Health Organization (WHO) promptly did something it has never done before or since. It specifically denounced a type of psychological therapy and recommended that it shouldn’t be used. The therapy was a single session treatment called “ psychological debriefing,” which involved working with disaster victims to encourage people to supposedly “process” the intense emotions by talking through them in stages. It was intended to prevent later mental health problems by helping people resolve difficult emotions early on. The only trouble was that it made things worse. Studies had shown that people given post-disaster psychological debriefing were subsequently more likely to suffer mental health problems than people who had had no treatment at all. Guidance from the world’s most influential health authority had little effect, and the therapy was extensively used. The reluctance to do things differently was tied up with some of the least-appreciated facts about our reactions to disaster. In our trauma-focused society, it is often forgotten that the majority of people who experience the ravages of natural disaster, become the victims of violence or lose loved ones in tragedy will need no assistance from mental health professionals. Most people will be shaken up, distressed and bereaved, but these are natural reactions, not in themselves disorders. Only a minority of people — rarely more than 30% in well-conducted studies and often considerably less — will develop psychological difficulties as a result of their experiences, and the single most common outcome is recovery without the need of professional help. But regardless of the eventual outcome, you are likely to be at your most stressed during the disaster and your stress levels will decrease afterwards even if they don’t return to normal. Your body simply cannot maintain peak levels of anxiety. These are important facts to bear in mind because, from the point of view of the disaster therapist, psychological debriefing seems to work — stress levels genuinely drop. But what the individual therapist can’t see is that this would happen more effectively, leaving less people traumatised, if they did nothing.

阅读理解With only about 1000 pandas left in the world, China is desperately trying to clone the animal andsave the endangered species. That’s move similar to what a Texas AM University researcher hasbeen undertaking for the past five years in a project called “Noah’s Ark”.Dr. Duane Kraemer, a professor in Texas AM’s College of Veterinary Medicine and a pioneer inembryo transfer work and related procedures, says he salutes the Chinese effort and “I wish them allthe best success possible. It’s a worthwhile project, certainly not an easy one, and it’s very much likewhat we’re attempting here at Texas AM — to save animals from extinction.”Noah’s Ark is aimed at collecting eggs, embryos, semen and DNA of endangered animals andstoring them in liquid nitrogen. If certain species should become extinct. Kraemer says there wouldbe enough of the basic building blocks to reintroduce the species in the future.It is estimated that as many as 2000 species of mammals, birds and reptiles will become extinct overthe next 100 years. The panda, native only to China, is in danger of becoming extinct in the next 25years.This week, Chinese scientists said they grew an embryo by introducing cells from a dead femalepanda into the egg cells of a Japanese white rabbit. They are now trying to implant the embryo into ahost animal.The entire procedure could take from three to five years to complete.“The nuclear transfer of one species to another is not easy, and the lack of available panda eggscould be a major problem,” Kraemer believes. “They will probably have to do several hundredtransfers to result in one pregnancy. It takes a long time and it’s difficult, but this could begroundbreaking science if it works. They are certainly not putting any live pandas at risk, so it isworth the effort,” adds Kraemer, who is one of the leaders of the Missyplicity Project at Texas AM,the first-ever attempt at cloning a dog.“They are trying to do something that’s never been done, and this is very similar to our work inNoah’s Ark. We’re both trying to save animals that face extinction. I certainly applaud their effortand there’s a lot we can learn from what they are attempting to do. It’s a research that is very muchneeded.”

阅读理解New Year’s detox products that purport to rid the body of harmful chemicals accumulated through seasonal over-indulgence are a waste of time and money, leading scientists said recently. Most of the pills, juices, teas and oils that are sold for their detoxifying effects on the body have no scientific foundation for their claims, according to toxicologists and dieticians. They will not influence the rate at which the body rids itself of toxins, and any beneficial effects would be matched at much lower cost by drinking plenty of tap water, eating fruit and vegetables and getting a few early nights. The entire market for detox products, which is worth tens of millions of pounds a year, rests on myths about the human body that are hitting consumers in the wallet, the experts’report has found. “Among these myths is the idea that in some way the body accumulates noxious chemicals during everyday life, and that they need to be expunged by some mysterious process of detoxification, often once a year after Christmas excess. The detox fad — or fads, as there are many methods — is an example of the capacity of people to believe in (and pay for) magic despite the lack of any sound evidence.”said Martin Wiseman, Visiting Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Southampton. The criticism of the detox industry has emerged from an inquiry into public perceptions of chemicals and toxicity by a working party of 11 scientists. The full report, Making Sense of Chemical Stories, will be published later this month by the charity Sense About Science. It found that popular ideas about detox are based on misconceptions about how the human body responds to chemicals in the diet. The liver and kidneys are highly efficient organs that have evolved to break down and remove toxins from the bloodstream, and their function is not helped by products such as Gillian McKeith’s ￡ 19.99 “24 hour detox programme,”which claims to “assist the natural detoxification process in your body.”“Our bodies are very good at eliminating all the nasties that we might digest over the festive season,”said John Emsley, of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Sir Colin Berry, Professor Emeritus of Pathology at Queen Mary, University of London, said: “Even if you drink an almost lethal dose of alcohol (which I don’t recommend) your liver will clear it in 36 hours without assistance from detox tablets.”

阅读理解 After 25 years battling the mother of all viruses, have we finally got the measure of HIV? Three developments featured in this issue collectively give grounds for optimism that would have been scarcely believable a year ago in the wake of another failed vaccine and continuing problems supplying drugs to all who need them. Perhaps the most compelling hope lies in the apparent 'cure' of a man with HIV who had also developed leukemia. Doctors treated his leukemia with a bone marrow transplant that also vanquished the virus. Now US Company Sangamo Biosciences is hoping to emulate the effect using gene therapy. If it works, and that is still a big if, it would open up the possibility of patients being cured with a single shot of gene therapy, instead of taking antiretroviral drugs for life. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is itself another reason for optimism. Researchers at the World Health Organization have calculated that HIV could be effectively eradicated in Africa and other hard-hit places using existing drugs. The trick is to test everyone often, and give those who test positive ART as soon as possible. Because the drugs rapidly reduce circulating levels of the virus to almost zero, it would stop people passing it on through sex. By blocking the cycle of infection in this way, the virus could be virtually eradicated by 2050. Bankrolling such a long-term program would cost serious money—initially around $3.5 billion a year in South Africa alone, ring to $85 billion in total. Huge as it sounds, however, it is peanuts compared with the estimated $1.9 trillion cost of the Iraq war, or the $700 billion spent in one go propping up the US banking sector. It also look small beer compared with the costs of carrying on as usual, which the WHO says can only lead to spiraling cases and costs. The final bit of good news is that the cost of ART could keep on falling. Last Friday, GlaxoSmithKline chairman Andrew Witty said that his company would offer all its medicines to the poorest countries for at least 25 per cent less than the typical price in rich countries. GSK has already been doing this for ART, but the hope is that the company may now offer it cheaper still and that other firms will follow their lead. No one doubt the devastation caused by AIDS. In 2007, 2 million people died and 2.7 million more contracted the virus. Those dismal numbers are not going to turn around soon—and they won't turn around at all without huge effort and investment. But at least there is renewed belief that, given the time and money, we can finally start riddling the world of this most fearsome of viruses.

阅读理解The poverty line is the minimum income that people need for an acceptable standard of living.People with incomes below the poverty line are considered poor. Economists study the causes ofpoverty in order to find solutions to the problem.As the general standard of living in the country rises, the poverty line does, too. Therefore, even withtodays relatively high standard of living, about 10 percent of the people in the United States arebelow the poverty line. However, if these people had stable jobs, they could have an acceptablestandard of living. Economists suggest several reasons why poor people do not have jobs.For one thing, more than half of the poor people in the United States are not qualified to work. Over40 percent of the poor people are children. By law, children less than 16 years old cannot work inmany industries. A large number of poor people are old. Many companies do not hire people over 65years old, the normal retirement age.Some poor adults do not look for jobs for a variety of personal reasons: they are sick, they do nothave any motivation, they have family problems, or they do not believe that they can find a job.Other poor people look for a job but cannot find one. Many poor adults never went to high school.Therefore, when they look for jobs, they have few skills that they can offer.At the present time, the government thinks it can reduce poverty in the country in the followingways.First, if the national economy grows, businesses and industries hire more workers. Some of the poorwho are qualified to look for jobs may find employment. Then they will no longer be below thepoverty line.Second, if society invests in the poor, the poor will become more productive. If the governmentspends money on social programs, education, and training for poor people, the poor will have theskills to offer. Then it is more likely that they can find jobs.Finally, if the government distributes society’s income differently, it raises some poor people abovethe poverty line. The government collects taxes from the non-poor and gives money to the poor.These payments to the poor are called welfare. In 1975 over 18 million people in the United Statesreceived welfare.Some economists are looking for better solutions to the poverty problem. However, at the presenttime, many people depend on welfare for a minimally acceptable standard of living.

阅读理解Passage Four Misconduct is a word that is always on professors minds

阅读理解Modern liberal opinion is sensitive to problems of restriction of freedom and abuse of power. Indeed,many hold that a man can be injured only by violating his will, but this view is much too narrow. Itfails to recognize the great dangers we shall face in the uses of biomedical technology that stem froman excess of freedom, from the unrestrained exercise of will. In my view, our greatest problems willbe voluntary self-degradation, or willing dehumanization, as the unintended yet often inescapableconsequence of sternly and successfully pursuing our humanization goals.Certain desires and perfected medical technologies have already had some dehumanizingconsequences. Improved methods of resuscitation (复苏) efforts to save the severely ill and injured.Yet these efforts are sometimes only partly successful. They succeed in rescuing individuals butthose individuals may have severe brain damage and be capable of only a less-than-human,vegetating existence. Such patients found with increasing frequency in the intensive care units ofuniversity hospitals, have been denied a death with dignity. Families are forced to suffer seeing theirbeloved ones so reduced and are made to bear the burden of a prolonged “death watch”.Even the ordinary methods of treating disease and prolonging life have changed the context in whichmen die. Fewer and fewer people die in the familiar surroundings of home or in the company offamily and friends. At that time of life when there is perhaps the greatest need for human warmth andcomfort, the dying patient is kept company by cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators, respiratorsaspirators, oxygenators, catheters and his intravenous drip. Ties to the community of men arereplaced by attachments to an assemblage of machines.This loneliness, however, is not confined to the dying patient in the hospital bed. Consider theincreasing number of old people still alive thanks to medical progress. As a group, the elderly are themost alienated members of our society. Not yet ready for the world of the dead, not deemed fit forthe world of the living, they are shunted aside. More and more of them spend for the extra yearsmedicine has given them in “homes for senior citizens”, in hospitals for chronic diseases, and innursing home — waiting for the end. We have learned how to increase their years, but we have notlearned how to help them enjoy their days. Yet we continue to bravely and sternly push back thefrontier against death.

阅读理解Questions 16 to 20 are based on the following passage: Whenever you see an old film, even one made as little as ten years ago, you cannot help being struck by the appearance of the women taking part

阅读理解Texting has long been bemoaned (哀叹) as the downfall of the written word, “penmanship forilliterates,” as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn’twriting at all. It’s a “spoken” language that is getting richer and more complex by the year.First, some historical perspective. Writing was only invented 5,500 years ago, whereas languageprobably traces back at least 80,000 years. Thus talking came first; wring is just a craft that camealong later. As such, the first writing was based on the way people talk, with short sentences.However, while talking is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time,writers took advantage of this and started crafting long-winded sentences such as this one: “Thewhole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into adisorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and…”No one talks like that casually—or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions. Inthe old days, we didn’t much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce thespeed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do—and a revolution has begun. It involvesthe crude mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting isactually a new kind of talking, with its own kind of grammar and conventions.Take LOL. It doesn’t actually mean “laughing out loud” in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolvedinto something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing.Joeelyn texts “Where have you been?” and Annabelle texts back “LOL at the library studying fortwo hours.” LOL signal basic empathy (同感) between texters, easing tension and creating a sense ofequality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something—conveying an attitude—just like the-ed ending conveys past tense rather than “meaning” anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar.Of course no one thinks about that consciously. But then most of communication operates withoutbeing noticed. Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression drifts—meat used to mean anykind of food, silly used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.Civilization, then, is fine—people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a codeseparate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruiningcomposition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting—quick,casual and only intended to be read once—is actually a way of talking with your fingers.

阅读理解It can be inferred from the passage that high-quality college education calls for __________ .

阅读理解Passage One:Questions are based on the following passage

阅读理解For decades, people had continued to pay down mortgages until their last cent was spent. Now,increasing numbers were giving up their homes even as they continued to service other debts. Facedwith a plunge in house prices across the US — something that has not happened since the GreatDepression of the 1930s — the mortgage industry is already dealing with a surge in the numbers ofpeople defaulting on their payments.The concern is that the losses on risky subprime mortgages could soon swell further as people withgood credit history decide it is not worth continuing to make payments on houses worth less that theloan. House prices in the US are already 20 per cent from the 2006 highs and are forecast to keepfalling. For many, especially those who have put little of their own money into a house, sending backthe keys could be perfectly rational. The practice has given a name in the industry — “jingle mail”— and there are even companies specializing in helping people with the decision. Youwalkway.com,one such service, almost makes it sound an alluring prospect, “what if you could live payment-freefor up to eight months or more and walk away without owing a penny?” the website asks.Larry Rosenberger, arguably one of the most experienced crunchers of consumer debt statisticsaround, was meeting the consortium of mortgage lenders to talk about analyzing their data fromclues about which people in negative equity could be expected to keep paying down their mortgages.They said, “we’re getting killed with losses, can we figure out more accurately who will do what, sowe can be more accommodating with some borrowers but not with others,” Mr. Rosenberger says.The accuracy of the models used by the likes of Mr. Rosenberger to flag good and bad customerscould make a huge difference to the losses that lenders eventually have to absorb — losses that will,in turn, determine the availability of fresh funds for new loans. His approach was to seek clues topeople’s future actions in their past behaviors. For example, people with children at local schoolsmay be less likely to walk away than people without school-age children. People with mortgages onsecond homes may be more likely to give up the investment.

阅读理解Ariella Rosengard of the University of Pennsylvania didn’t set out to scare anyone. She just wanted to investigate a little-understood part of the immune system by studying how viral proteins interact with it. At first, Rosengard worked with a common virus called vaccinia. But vaccinia rarely makes people sick, and she began to worry that it wouldn’t tell her much about the human immune system. So she turned to a closely related, far more fearsome virus: smallpox. Smallpox virus isn’t easy to come by. Officially, it resides in only two places — secure labs in the United States and Russia. But Rosengard didn’t need the virus itself. Scientists have made its genetic code freely available on the Internet, giving her the data she needed to synthesize a key smallpox protein in the lab. Test-tube studies showed that it works far better than the corresponding vaccinia protein at blocking a key step in the human immune response. The discovery may help explain why smallpox kills, and it could lead to new treatments. But when Rosengard published her report last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a slightly defensive commentary appeared with it. The article said it would be unlikely to use the work as a blueprint for making vaccinia more like smallpox. It acknowledged, however, that “ the idea that bioterrorists might be tempted to attempt such an experiment has been suggested as a reason for considering it unwise to publish observations of this nature. “ Rosengard rejects the idea that basic science like hers should be put under wraps. “Think how many brilliant minds would not be able to participate in finding a cure,” she says. “ You can’t predict the mind of a madman. The best defense against any virus is understanding how it functions. “ Most biologists would agree. But these days, they find themselves grappling with a dilemma, as their tradition of openness clashes with the fear that well-intentioned research could be misused to develop bioweapons. As much as scientists fear aiding their enemies, they get unnerved when government officials talk about restricting their freedom to publish. One thing’s for sure — the problem won’t just go away. The Government has proposed a dramatic increase in funding for basic research on potential biowarfare agents. This means that many more scientists will study deadly germs, and they’ll inevitably want to publish what they find.

阅读理解Directions: In this part for the test, there will be 5 passages for you to read. Each passage is followed by 4 questions or unfinished statement, and each question or unfinished statement is followed by four choices marked A, B, C and D. You are to decide on the best choice by blackening the corresponding letter on the ANSWER SHEET.Passage Three “A HARMLESS drudge, Of the definitions in Samuel Johnson’s great English dictionary of 1755，that of “lexicographer”，his own calling, is the most famous, an example of the same wit that led him to define “oats” as “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people’，.Why name a language column after a harmless drudge? Because Johnson, despite the drudgery, knew that language was not harmless. Its power to inform and to lead astray, to entertain and to annoy, to build co-operation or destroy a reputation, makes language serious stuff, The Economist’s “Johnson” column began in 1992 and was later revived online. This week it returns to the print edition, and henceforth will appear fortnightly.Many of the topics tackled are fun： swearing and slang, preferences and peeves. Some are more fundamental. Language reveals a lot about human nature: how people reason differently in a foreign language, or to what extent different languages encode a world view, are some of the most exciting and controversial topics in linguistic research.People care intensely about their language, and so language in the wider world sometimes comes into conflict. The perceived arrogance of Castilians to Catalan threatens to sunder Spain； “language police” in Quebec tell restaurant owners to change “pasta” and “grilled cheese” pates and fromae fondant. At the extreme, the passage of a law downgrading Russian in Ukraine helps spark war in that country ；Vladimir Putin has used it as evidence that Ukrainian nationalists are bent on wiping out Russian culture there. The war has rumbled on since, with language the most obvious symbol of wider identity and sympathy.So the Johnson column treats topics light and heavy as well as language both English and international. A language column is expected to tackle questions of right and wrong. There are roughly two views of how to do this： one top-down, based on authority, prestige, writing and stability； one bottom-up, resting on how most people actually use the language, and open to change.The two schools of thought, known as “prescriptivism” ( which sets down how the language should be) and “ descriptivism” ( which tells how it is ) , have often been at daggers drawn: English teachers and some usage-book writers on one side, and academic linguists, lexicographers and other usage-book writers on the other. In the caricature, prescriptivists are authoritarians with their heads in the sand, insisting on Victorian-era non-rules. The descriptivists are mocked as “ anything-is-correct ”，embracing every fad，even that Shakespeare should be taught in text- message-speak.An intellectual writing for an elite audience, Samuel Johnson did not shy away from “right” and “wrong”，even “barbarity”，“depravity” and “corruption”，in matters of language. But he declared his task was not to “form” but to “register” (that is, describe) the language； trying to stop change was like trying to “ lash the wind”. Above all, his years of drudging at the dictionary had taught him humility: he knew he was sure to commit “ a few wild blunders, and visible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free”.Prescribing is not really the opposite of describing. Lexicographers from Johnson’s day on must describe the language, grounding their definitions in real living English. But that is in order to give stronger roots to a book they know people will use for firm guidance. Academic linguists, the arch-descriptivists, are perfectly willing to call some usages wrong and others plain ugly.

阅读理解Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has been obsessed by the possibility that it will one day be extinguished. The impact of an asteroid on earth and the spectre of nuclear holocaust are the most prevalent millennial fears. Now some scientists are increasingly leaning towards the view that a new nightmare must be added to the list. Their concern is that intelligent computers will eventually develop minds of their own and destroy the human race. The latest warning comes from Professor Stephen Hawking. He told an interviewer this week that artificial intelligence could “outsmart us all” and that a technological catastrophe is a “near certainty. “ Most non-experts will dismiss his claims as a fantasy rooted in science fiction. But the pace of progress in artificial intelligence, or AI, means policy makers should already be considering the social consequences. According to a recent survey, half the world’s AI experts believe human-level machine intelligence will be achieved by 2040 and 90 per cent say it will arrive by 2075. Several AI experts talk about the possibility that the human brain will eventually be “ reverse engineered. “ Some prominent tech leaders, meanwhile, warn that the consequences are unpredictable. Elon Musk, the pioneer of electric cars, has argued that advanced computer technology is “ potentially more dangerous than nuclear threats. “ That said, the risk that computers might one day pose a challenge to humanity should be put in perspective. Scientists may not be able to say with certainty when, or if, machines will match or outperform mankind. But before the world gets to that point, the drawing together of both human and computer intelligence will almost certainly help to tackle pressing problems that cannot otherwise be solved. The growing ability of computers to crunch enormous quantities of data, for example, will play a huge role in helping humanity tackle climate change and disease over the next few decades. It would be folly to arrest the development of computer technology now — and forgo those benefits — because of risks that lie much further in the future. There is every reason to be optimistic about AI research. There is no evidence that scientists will struggle to control computers, even at their most advanced stage. But this is a sector in which pioneers must tread carefully — and with their eyes open to the enduring ability of science to surprise us.

阅读理解 The American Society of Clinical Oncology wrapped its annual conference this week, going through the usual motions of presenting a lot of drugs that offer some added quality or extension of life to those suffering from a variety of as-yet incurable diseases. But buried deep in an AP story are a couple of promising headlines that seems worthy of more thorough review, including one treatment study where 100 percent of patients saw their cancer diminish by half. First of all, it seems pharmaceutical companies are moving away from the main cost-effective one-size-fits-all approach to drug development and embracing the long cancer treatments, engineering drugs that only work for a small percentage of patients but work very effectively within that group. Pfizer announced that one such drug it's pushing into late-stage testing is target for 4% of lung cancer patients. But more than 90% of that tiny cohort responded to the drug initial tests, and 9 out of ten is getting pretty close to the ideal ten out of ten. By gearing toward more boutique treatments rather than broad umbrella pharmaceuticals that try to fit for everyone it seems cancer researchers are making some headway. But how can we close the gap on that remaining ten percent? Ask Takeda Pharmaceutical and Celgene, two drug makers who put aside competitive interests to test a novel combination of their treatments. In a test of 66 patients with the blood disease multiple myeloma, a full 100 percent of the subjects saw their cancer reduced by half. Needless to say, a 100 percent response to a cancer drug (or in this case a drug cocktail) is more or less unheard of. Moreover, this combination never would've been two competing companies hadn't sat down and put their heads together. Are there more potentially effective drug combos out there separated by competitive interest and proprietary information? Who's to say, but it seems like with the amount of money and research being pumped into cancer drug development, the outcome pretty good. And if researchers can start pushing more of their response numbers toward 100 percent, we can more easily start talking about oncology's favorite four-letter word: cure.