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Late next month Europe's political leaders will meet in Berlin to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Today's European Union sprang directly from that treaty. An economic club that began with six members has grown into a far-reaching political entity that has 27 members, 500 million inhabitants and constitutes the world's biggest economic and trading block. Reaching 50 ought to be a joyous occasion. Yet no celebration in Berlin can hide the fact that the EU is in something of a mid-life crisis. For most of the past decade its economic growth has been feeble and its unemployment unacceptably high. Nobody knows where to draw its boundaries. And since France and the Netherlands voted "no" in two referendums in 2005 it has been unable to agree on its own constitution. Enthusiasts hope that the Berlin reunion will lead to a revival of that plan. They are deluding themselves. A flood of books, articles and broadcasts is expected to mark the 50th birthday. This is not, in fact, such a book. A Dutch journalist and historian, Geert Mak, spent the last year of the 20th century travelling around the continent for his newspaper, NRC Handelsblad. His musings were gathered into a book that became a bestseller in the Netherlands in 2004. Now the publishers have had the bright idea of bringing out an English translation just before the Rome treaty anniversary.Mr. Mak does indeed tell of the origins of the EU, notably by drawing on the words and wisdom of Max Kohnstamm, a Dutchman who worked closely with Jean Monnet, the project's French founding father. But his book is really a broader travelling history of the whole of Europe's 20th century. As befits a journalist with an eye for bad news, he also has much more to say on its calamitous first half than on its more successful second half. Mr. Mak's travels start in the capitals that glittered so brightly in the early 1900s: Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, London. This was a time when Europe seemed unchallenged in its prosperity and leadership. But much of this was thrown away in the mud, filth and death of what the author calls the war of 1914-45. Mr. Mak tells this part of his story vividly and in great, gory detail, moving from grim fields of battle (Verdun, Stalingrad) to stirring places of revolution (Petrograd, Berlin), and on to ghastly charnel-houses of death and destruction (Auschwitz, Dresden). Through the book runs one powerful common strand: nationalism and the end of Europe's multi-ethnic way of life. Mr. Mak finds a telling quote from Hitler, who declared that "the essence of Europe is not geographical but racial." The first world war did for the continent's three great multinational empires: the Habsburg, the Russian and the Ottoman. The cataclysmic 1939-45 war destroyed much of what was left, killing along the way as many as 40 million people in Europe, including 6 million Jews. Mr. Mak rightly plays up the centrality of the two world wars to Europe's 20th century. As he notes, it is not possible to appreciate the forces that play out in eastern Europe or the Balkans, say, without a comprehensive understanding of these regions' experience in the second world war, and the cold war that followed. This is also why he devotes less space to Britain and France than to places farther east. It is equally impossible to grasp the origins of the European Union without dwelling on the two wars. The founders wanted above all to avoid repeating the experience of the first half of the century. Monnet and his fellows were convinced that nationalism lay at the root of Europe's troubles. Their answer was to lay the foundation stones for a supranational state. Yet the tension between nationalism and supranationalism was there from the start. Charles de Gaulle, with his fierce attachment to France, was in some ways the first Eurosceptic. He was also deeply suspicious of British intentions towards the European project, because Winston Churchill once told him that he would always choose the open sea over Europe. Euroscepticism has increased over the past decade, and is now found even in the 12 countries that have joined the EU since Mr. Mak first wrote his book. Yet as he explains in an epilogue added in 2006, the problems of the EU run deeper than just coping with Euroscepticism. Young Europeans do not fret over the risk of another war, so that part of Monnet's dream means nothing to them. Instead they see a remote, bureaucratic and in some ways undemocratic organisation—and not one that offers them a dream at all. No constitution will change that, something the leaders who will be gathering in Berlin would do well to realise.
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It is popular to lament the growing gap between capitalists and workers. In one respect, however, the gap is shrinking: the number of workers who own shares in the business that employs them has never been higher. America leads the way: 32m Americans own stock in their companies through pension and profit-sharing plans, and share-ownership and share-option schemes. The idea continues to gain momentum. Hillary Clinton's recent speeches suggest that she may make it an important plank in her plans to reform capitalism. And worker-capitalists are also on the march everywhere. Conservatives like employee ownership because it gives workers a stake in the capitalist system. Left-wingers like it because it gives them a piece of the capitalist pie. And middle-of-the-roaders like it because it helps to close a potentially dangerous gap between capital and labour. Britain's David Cameron praises John Lewis, a retailer entirely owned by its staff. Bernie Sanders, America's only socialist senator and now a candidate for the Democratic nomination, is a champion of employee share-ownership. The trend is also being driven by a long-term shift from "defined benefit"(DB)pension plans, in which employers guarantee the retirement income of their workers, to "defined contribution"(DC)schemes, in which workers and employers put money into an investment pot, with no guarantees of how much it will eventually pay out. Including current workers and pensioners there are more than 88m DC plans in existence. A 2013 survey by Aon Hewitt, a consulting firm, found that 14% of such plans' assets were invested in the shares of the employer in question. A number of studies have found that workers at firms where employees have a significant stake tend to be more productive and innovative, and to have less staff turnover. Employee ownership has its drawbacks, however. One is the risk that workers have too many eggs in one basket: if their employer goes bust they can lose their pensions as well as their jobs. Just before Enron went bankrupt in 2001 the average employee held 62% of his or her 401(k)assets in Enron shares. Despite various initiatives by Congress to stop firms touting their shares to employees, similar cases are still arising. A second problem is entrenchment. Supporters of worker ownership argue that it helps companies take a more long-term perspective. Critics argue that it can entrench bad management and undermine a company's long-term competitiveness: underperforming bosses are much more likely to be able to stay in place, and resist hostile takeovers, if some of the company's shares are in friendly hands. In 1994 United Airlines handed many of its workers a 55% stake, and representation on the board, in return for pay cuts. But its performance remained poor, and it filed for bankruptcy in 2002. A third risk is entitlement. The strongest argument in favour of employee ownership is that workers will not only toil harder if they get a slice of the profits, but will make sure that their colleagues do so too. A new paper by Benjamin Dunford and others, argues that commitment can transmute into entitlement. The academics studied a sample of 409 employees at a commercial-property firm in the Midwest and found that those who invested a higher proportion of their 401(k)accounts in company stock expected better benefits than the rest, and took more discretionary leave.(However, the study did not consider whether employee ownership boosted the firm's overall performance.) Arguments about employee ownership can easily become too sweeping: grand claims from supporters invite vigorous rebuttals by critics. A great deal depends on how schemes are structured, and the motives for introducing them. Another recent paper, by Han Kim and Paige Ouimet, considers the sizes of ESOPs and of the firms that offer them. They find that small ESOPs(which control a stake of less than 5 % in the company in question)are far more likely to boost productivity than large ones, because firms that introduce large ESOPs are often troubled ones trying to conserve cash by substituting shares for pay, or seeking to fend off hostile takeovers by giving shares to friendly insiders. They also argue that ESOPs are much more likely to work in smaller firms than larger ones because employee-owners can more easily monitor each other and boost overall productivity. There is plenty to be said for employee ownership. It can sharpen workers' motivation and go some way to healing a potentially dangerous divide between the working class and the boss class. But if politicians are serious about the idea, they need to think harder about how to make it work in practice. They should pay closer attention to how schemes are designed, and look for ways to tailor regulations and tax incentives so as to encourage well-designed schemes. They also need to deal with the problem of concentrating risk in a single company' s shares. Given that the average life expectancy of Fortune 500 companies has fallen from 75 years in the 1930s to perhaps just 15 years today, encouraging employees to invest their savings with the companies that employ them is a recipe for miserable retirements.
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In this season of celebrity babies, with the coming of Baby Suri, Tom and Katie's new addition, and Gwyneth's Baby Moses and the imminent arrival of Baby Brangelina, I can't help wonder how these parents handle the insatiable public curiosity about this most profoundly personal event, as they head home from the hospital, in Tom and Katie's case, to find seven satellite trucks parked outside, and a lemonade stand. We are used to beautiful weddings being celebrated in the pages of People and In Style, and ugly divorces scorching the pages of the tabloids. But there is something so different about childbirth that it makes me wonder whether, just this once, the famous parents should crawl into a very private hole and pull it in after them, rather than sending Diane Sawyer an e-mail telling all about it. (Maybe this is one reason Angelina Jolie was heading off to a secluded resort in Namibia as her due date approached.) A wedding can be a beautiful and blessed day; but the most perfect romance scripted into the most storybook ceremony does not have the spirit of raw astonishment that childbirth has. You are in control of your wedding; you have planned and listed and catered and crafted every detail, and if you are a celebrity you have the help of an army of event planners to make sure that the cake rises and the willows weep and everything goes according to plan. But you can't do that with childbirth. You can eat right, practice breathing, prepare the nursery, try out names, pack the hospital bag with non-slip socks and lollipops (to keep your mouth moist) and tennis balls (for a counterpressure back massage). But this is mainly about creating the illusion of control. Once it starts, once the contractions begin, once the baby launches towards delivery, the momentum heads in the opposite direction, towards mystery, not management, and chaos, not control. However calm the doctors and however smooth the delivery, this is still a moment to marvel. It is when you feel both most unique, as though you are the first person ever to have done this, and most united with everyone else, because people have been having babies as long as there have been people. The very ordinariness of the experience is one of the most extraordinary things about it. And then you are left, belly tender, breasts leaking, veins visible from the effort, sweaty, exhausted and astounded at what you are holding. Where did YOU come from? Who ARE you, you ask this very small human, who has been living with you, in you, for the past nine months and yet who now seems suddenly so new and alien and separate, her own body, her own soul. Hello. Nice to see you. Let me sing you a quiet song. There can be few more precious or private moments than this. It is not a natural place for strangers to enter, or press handlers or paparazzi. For just a little while at least, you would think a brand new little family would want more than anything to be left alone and be mammals together and feel safe, protected. I can't imagine what it would be like to have the world waiting right outside. Maybe by the time you've lived under the lights this long you are used to it. But nothing can really prepare you for what it feels like to walk into a hospital as a patient and walk out as a parent. It makes a normal person feel like a celebrity: I've just done this incredible thing. I wonder if maybe it also makes a celebrity feel, just once, strangely normal.
Global warming? You may accept or reject those who say it is a dangerous phenomenon. But if the planet is warming, and humanity is contributing to it, shouldn't someone be【C1】______? If the Earth is, in fact, engaged in a long-term warming cycle? And if humanity is partly responsible —【C2】______? Possible solutions to global warming range from the simple to the complex, from changing【C3】______to engineering giant reflectors in space. The most talked about solutions involve expanded use of【C4】______, and less reliance on fossil fuels. Volcanoes, forest fires, ocean and atmospheric variability are 【C5】______that change climate conditions. Might nature correct the warming trend itself? Climate scientists say that it seems very unlikely. 【C6】______. Science gives us likelihood. We think that it's likely that【C7】______of the last few decades isn't due to the usual causes such as changes【C8】______, changes in the sun, volcanoes, but it's due primarily to humans【C9】______. John Topping of the nonprofit Climate Institute says it will be 【C10】______, not governments, coming up with solutions. He argues that we need to【C11】______in the direction of emerging clean energy technologies and part of that's going to happen because we, as consumers, step forward and we are conscious【C12】______to get more energy-efficient products. Higher gas prices are making 【C13】______more attractive to consumers. Building and home constructions are becoming more energy efficient. Climate change is【C14】______. But climate change also provides an opportunity for countries【C15】______, and the only way to advance much globally, is to look at approaches that protect the environment at the same time that they【C16】______. Wider application of renewable energy resources could reduce greenhouse gases and【C17】______. Some scientists are suggesting grander solutions, involving【C18】______: building huge sunshades in space, for example, tinkering with clouds to make them 【C19】______, perhaps tricking oceans into soaking up 【C20】______.
When Shelton Johnson was 5, his family took him to Berchtesgaden National Park in the Bavarian Alps. Now 52, he still remembers his sense of awe. "The mountains, the sky being so close—it affected me profoundly," said Mr. Johnson, who now works as a ranger at Yosemite National Park in California. In 23 years on the job, Mr. Johnson has been equally struck by how few of his fellow African-Americans visit the national parks. So a few years ago, he decided to write Oprah Winfrey, the American entertainment icon. "Every year, America is becoming increasingly diverse, but that diversity is not reflected in the national parks, even though African-Americans and other groups played a vital role in the founding of national parks," he wrote. "If the national parks are America's playground, then why are we not playing in the most beautiful places in America?" "The Oprah Winfrey Show" recently aired two episodes from Yosemite in response to Mr. Johnson's appeal. The National Park Service is expanding its efforts to diversify both its guests and its work force as the agency prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2016. Surveys show that visitors to America's 393 national parks—there were 285. 5 million of them in 2009—are mainly non-Hispanic whites, with blacks the least likely to visit. The Park Service now says the problem is linked to the parks' very survival. "If the American public doesn't know that we exist or doesn't care, our mission is potentially in jeopardy," said Jonathan B. Jarvis, who took over as director of the Park Service last year. In a Park Service survey it commissioned in 2000, only 13 percent of black respondents reported visiting a national park in the previous two years. Jim Gramann, a visiting social scientist with the Park Service who is overseeing a review of a follow-up survey in 2008 and 2009 that is to be released early next year, said the gap persisted. "The demographic face of America is not reflected in national park visitation, with a few exceptions," Mr. Gramann said. But some officials acknowledge that the parks may not seem welcoming to specific ethnic groups. They cited rules that limit the number of people in picnic areas or the number of tents that can be pitched at specific sites, which can clash with the vacation style of extended Latino families. But no group avoids national parks as much as African-Americans. The 2000 survey found that blacks were three times as likely as whites to believe that park employees gave them poor service and that parks were "uncomfortable places. " Attendance tends to be more homogenously white at wilderness parks like Yosemite, where a 2009 survey found that 77 percent of the visitors were white, 11 percent Latino, 11 percent Asian and 1 percent black. Mr. Johnson said he was more likely to meet someone from Finland or Israel in the park than from an African-American neighborhood in the United States. "It's something that's pervasive in the culture—it doesn't matter whether you're Oprah or a postal worker," Mr. Johnson said.
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BSECTION 4: TRANSLATION TEST(2)Directions: Translate the following passage into English and write your version in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET./B
Recreational cycling appears to have peaked in the US, its popularity cresting sometime during Lance Armstrong's record runs at the Tour de France. But as the sport has lost enthusiasts overall, a surprising demographic has stuck around and even begun to dominate the trails and bike paths of the US, if not yet the world: retirees and near retirees. People ages 45 to 64 account for 20% of all those over age 7 who rode a bike at least six times last year, according to the National Sporting Goods Association. That's up from 13% a decade ago. Yes, this age bracket is expanding as a percentage of the overall population, but demographics can't tell the whole story. After all, golf— the quintessential 50-plus sport—is moving in reverse, at least in some respects. Last year, for the first time in 60 years, more golf courses shut down than started up, and the number of frequent golfers declined. The appeal of cycling is most pronounced among the youngest baby boomers (ages 45 to 54), who are also tackling other vigorous leisure activities including hiking and running marathons. Such pursuits embody the active later lifestyle that much of the boomer generation has come to adopt, and which has been embraced as the ad media's new image of older Americans at leisure. Certainly, semi-seniors wake up the morning after a vigorous outing with more aches and pains than they had in their 20s, but the physical benefits exceed the cost. Regular exercise lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, keeps weight down and improves mental outlook. This is all good news. Yet there is more at work in the biking trend than a desire to stay fit. Armstrong's string of wins starting in 1999 might have made cycling cool, and health concerns might have made it smart, but technology made it accessible. If you've been eager to take up the sport but are put off by the discomfort of a traditional bicycle, take another look. Many of today's models come with bigger seats and higher handlebars—easing the strain on bottoms and backs—and even automatic gear shifting. Features like these have helped create a whole new line of bikes, known as hybrid or comfort, the latter word particularly appealing to older riders. The very hottest part of the market is road bikes, which also appeal to boomers who may be giving up on yesterday's phenomenon—less comfortable mountain bikes, a category in which sales have tailed off dramatically. With its grayish skew, could cycling become the new golf? A number of things suggest it already is. Stories increasingly surface of businesspeople cutting deals or doctors swapping medical techniques while on a ride, as opposed to the fourth tee. Early this month, at a gathering of the Neurosurgical Society of America in Kohler, Wis., the docs for the first time had the option of skipping an afternoon on the links and instead going for a group ride—and at least 20 signed up. The Kohler outing was put together by Trek Travel which arranges cycling events around the world and is benefiting from the graying of the sport; 85% of its clients are ages 45 to 60. "There's been a huge upswing in ourroup-travel business," says sales manager Michael Meholic. While plenty of Trek Travel's trips are for business groups, the majority are still for folks taking up the sport as a means of maintaining or establishing social groups and staying connected with kids and grandkids. Among the top trends in cycling-related travel are programs that include children, says Cari Gray, a spokeswoman for Butterfield & Robinson which arranges cycling trips around the world. Gray says clients value intimacy with the countryside, which you can't get on a tour bus, as well as the personal time they get with loved ones. But that doesn't mean boomers aren't serious cyclers. "People have epiphanies on our trips all the time— climbing a hill they thought they couldn't or going farther than they thought they could," says Gray. B&R clients are mostly 45-plus, and she says they are far better riders today than the firm's clients were 10 years ago. "Boomers are different," she says. "They want more from their vacation than a hangover and a tan."
BPart B Directions: In this part of the test, you will hear 2 passages in Chinese. After you have heard each passage, interpret it into English. Start interpreting at the signal.., and stop it at the signal…you may take notes while you're listening. Remember you will hear the passages ONLY ONCE.Now, let us begin Part B with the first passage./B
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To foreigners, few things seem as peculiarly British as the habit of sending young children away from home to school. At first glance, boarding schools are thriving, with almost 70,000 children within their walls. Independent education (both day and boarding) produces better-than-average academic results: they teach only 7% of English pupils but supply 38% of those gaining three or more A grades in the A-level exams taken at age 18. Yet some boarding schools are struggling. While the demand for private schools has increased over the past 20 years, the number of children at boarding schools has dropped sharply—from 112,135 in 1985 to 68,255 in 2005. The decline leveled off four years ago, thanks, say some, to the popularity of the Harry Potter books. But the only numbers that have risen significantly are those of students whose parents live abroad. One reason why boarding schools have lost some of their appeal is high fees—the average is around ￡18,830 ($35,470) a year. Lurid stories of children who harm themselves or take drugs, far from parental eyes, have not helped. Some schools are in trouble financially: three mergers have taken place this year; one school in Buckinghamshire will close in August; and another, in Sussex, was recently rescued by parents. Yet Adrian Underwood, national director of the Boarding Schools' Association, describes the future as "rosy". His optimism stems partly from renewed political interest in taking children from foster care and children's homes and sending them to boarding schools instead. Only 6% of those in care in 2004 got five good grades in their GCSE exams (taken at about 16 years of age), compared with 53% of children overall. Boarding schools can offer small classes and good discipline, helping pupils to counter the low expectations that prevent them from achieving all they could. The idea has been around for a while. A handful of charities as well as some local authorities already pay for a few hundred children to board, many of them in the state sector's 36 excellent boarding schools. But the thinking has become more ambitious. A working party in the Department for Education and Skills has spent months looking at ways to expand the programme. Pilot projects are due to start in September 2007. Among the 80 or so schools that are interested are Wellington, an independent senior school in Somerset, and the Dragon School, a preparatory school in Oxford. John Walker, speaking for Britain's prep schools (which educate children from ages seven to 13), says they could take pupils as young as five years old. Local authorities are less enthusiastic. Schools want full responsibility for the children they accept, while councils and social workers want to be able to check up on them. Some think that removing children from any version of parenting could have damaging long-term effects. Holidays are also problematic: the Fostering Network, which represents foster-carers, says that many foster parents are unwilling to have children only for the holidays. Those who think boarding schools could work magic on many vulnerable children chafe at the slow pace of progress. Lady (Mary) Richardson, head of the HSBC Education Trust, which now sponsors some 90 specialist schools and is considering taking part in this scheme, calls the plight of these children "immoral". Another charity, the Royal Wanstead Children's Foundation, already pays for some children to board. It wants the government to spread its new grants more widely, to include poor children who are not in care. For boarding schools, both those with an idealistic streak and the financially strapped, the appeal of increasing numbers is clear, as long as other parents don't squawk. They have another reason to be keen. New laws will soon require charities to justify their tax breaks by proving that they benefit society at large. Independent schools, 80% of which have charitable status, reaped ￡88 million in tax rebates in 2004. Accepting a few needy children might well safeguard that status.