单选题 Doctors are to begin a trial of a drug treatment that could double the time transplanted organs survive in the body. The 20-minute procedure effectively coats donor organs in a protective shield that stops them being rejected by the patient's immune system. The treatment is expected to prolong the time that organs remain healthy in patients' bodies and also increase their shelf-life (保存期限), so they can be stored for longer or transported further before being used. If the treatment works, it could ease the burden on organ transplant services, which face an increasing gap between the supply and demand for donor organs. People who receive transplants must take drugs to suppress their immune systems, but the body still reacts enough to cause transplants to fail sooner than they should. A healthy transplanted kidney lasts on average only 10 years, around one third of the time it should last. Organs such as hearts and livers fail even sooner. The consequence is that patients who have had one donor organ often need another. The new treatment, developed by researchers at King's College London, is based on the defense mechanism healthy organs use to shield themselves from immune system. Studies suggest the procedure could extend the life of an implanted kidney by around seven years. The scientists believe the treatment will also extend the shelf-life of donor organs, increasing the time they survive outside the body from no more than 24 hours to several days. This could reduce wastage and double the number of organs that work properly once they are transplanted, doctors said. In early tests, only a fifth of organs worked properly after being stored on ice for 16 hours, compared with 50% of those treated with mirococept (药物：米罗西普). A recent pilot study of the treatment on 16 patients found it was safe to use. Patients who receive donated organs treated with mirococept will still need to take drugs to suppress their immune systems, but doctors said an aim of their research was to see if the use of current drugs, which can increase a patient's risk of cancer, can be reduced.

单选题 The Touch-Screen Generation A. On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children's apps (应用程序) for phones and tablets (平板电脑) gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off their games. The gathering was organized by Warren Buckleitner, a longtime reviewer of interactive children's media. Buckleitner spent the breaks testing whether his own remote-control helicopter could reach the hall's second story, while various children who had come with their parents looked up in awe (敬畏) and delight. But mostly they looked down, at the iPads and other tablets displayed around the hall like so many open boxes of candy. I walked around and talked with developers, and several quoted a famous saying of Maria Montessori's 'The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence'. B. What, really, would Maria Montessori have made of this scene? The 30 or so children here were not down at the shore poking (戳) their fingers in the sand or running them along stones or picking seashells. Instead they were all inside, alone or in groups of two or three, their faces a few inches from a screen, their hands doing things Montessori surely did not imagine. C. In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics updated its policy on very young children and media. In 1999, the group had discouraged television viewing for children younger than 2, citing research on brain development that showed this age group's critical need for 'direct interactions with parents and other significant care givers'. The updated report began by acknowledging that things had changed significantly since then. In 2006, 90% of parents said that their children younger than 2 consumed some form of electronic media. Nevertheless, the group took largely the same approach it did in 1999, uniformly discouraging passive media use, on any type of screen, for these kids. (For older children, the academy noted, 'high-quality programs' could have 'educational benefits'.) The 2011 report mentioned 'smart cell phone' and 'new screen' technologies, but did not address interactive apps. Nor did it bring up the possibility that has likely occurred to those 90% of American parents that some good might come from those little swiping(在电子产品上刷) fingers. D. I had come to the developers' conference partly because I hoped that this particular set of parents, enthusiastic as they were about interactive media, might help me out of this problem, that they might offer some guiding principle for American parents who are clearly never going to meet the academy's ideals, and at some level do not want to. Perhaps this group would be able to express clearly some benefits of the new technology that the more cautious doctors weren't ready to address. E. I fell into conversation with a woman who had helped develop Montessori Letter Sounds, an app that teaches preschoolers the Montessori methods of spelling. She was a former Montessori teacher and a mother of four. I myself have three children who are all fans of the touch screen. What games did her kids like to play, I asked, hoping for suggestions I could take home. 'They don't play all that much'. Really? Why not? 'Because I don't allow it. We have a rule of no screen time during the week, unless it's clearly educational'. No screen time? None at all? That seems at the outer edge of restrictive, even by the standards of overcontrolling parenting. 'On the weekends, they can play. I give them a limit of half an hour and then stop. Enough'. F. Her answer so surprised me that I decided to ask some of the other developers who were also parents what their domestic ground rules for screen time were. One said only on airplanes and long car rides. Another said Wednesdays and weekends, for half an hour. The most permissive said half an hour a day, which was about my rule at home. At one point I sat with one of the biggest developers of e-book apps for kids, and his family. The small kid was starting to fuss in her high chair, so the mom stuck an iPad in front of her and played a short movie so everyone else could enjoy their lunch. When she saw me watching, she gave me the universal tense look of mothers who feel they are being judged. 'At home,' she assured me. 'I only let her watch movies in Spanish'. G. By their reactions, these parents made me understand the problem of our age: as technology becomes almost everywhere in our lives, American parents are becoming more, not less, distrustful of what it might be doing to their children. Technological ability has not, for parents, translated into comfort and ease. On the one hand, parents want their children to swim expertly in the digital stream that they will have to navigate(航行) all their lives; on the other hand, they fear that too much digital media, too early, will sink them. Parents end up treating tablets as precision surgical (外科的) instruments, devices that might perform miracles for their child's IQ and help him win some great robotics competition—but only if they are used just so. Otherwise, their child could end up one of those sad, pale creatures who can't make eye contact and has a girlfriend who lives only in the virtual world. H. Norman Rockwell, a 20th-century artist, never painted Boy Swiping Finger on Screen, and our own vision of a perfect childhood has never been adjusted to accommodate that now-common scene. Add to that our modem fear that every parenting decision may have lasting consequences—that every minute of enrichment lost or mindless entertainment indulged (放纵的) will add up to some permanent handicap (障碍) in the future—and you have deep guilt and confusion. To date, no body of research has proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speak Chinese, or alternatively that it will rest her nervous system—the device has been out for only three years, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather research subjects. So what is a parent to do?

单选题 The U.S. Department of Labor statistics indicate that there is an oversupply of college-trained workers and that this oversupply is increasing. Already there is an overabundance of teachers, engineers, physicists, aerospace experts, and other specialists. Yet colleges and graduate schools continue every year to turn out highly trained people to compete for jobs that aren't there. The result is that graduates cannot enter the professions for which they were trained and must take temporary jobs which do not require a college degree. On the other hand, there is a tremendous need for skilled workers of all sorts: carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, TV repairmen. These people have more work than they can handle, and their annual incomes are often higher than those of college graduates. The old distinction that white-collar workers make a better living than blue-collar workers no longer holds true. The law of supply and demand now favors the skilled workmen. The reason for this situation is the traditional myth that college degree is a passport to a prosperous future. A large segment of American society equates success in life with a college degree. Parents begin indoctrinating (灌输) their children with this myth before they are out of grade school. High school teachers play their part by acting as if high school education were a preparation for college rather than for life. Under this pressure the kids fall in line. Whether they want to go to college or not doesn't matter. Everybody should go to college, so of course they must go. And every year college enrollments go up and up, and more and more graduates are overeducated for the kinds of jobs available to them. One result of this emphasis on a college education is that many people go to college who do not belong there. Of the sixty percent of high school graduates who enter college, half of them do not graduate with their class. Many of them drop out within the first year. Some struggle on for two or three years and then give up.

单选题 New research has found that those who work 11-hour days or more increase their chance of a heart attack by two thirds. If you're about to embark on your usual 12-hour day at the office, you might want to pause a while—a few hours, actually. A study has found that those who spend more than 11 hours at work increase their chance of having a heart attack by two thirds. The team from University College London looked at more than 7,000 civil servants working in Whitehall over a period of 11 years and established how many hours they worked on average a day. They also collected information including the condition of their heart from medical records and health checks. Over the period, a total of 192 had suffered a heart attack. Then the study was published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, reporting that those who worked more than 11 hours a day were 67 percent more likely to have one than those who had a 'nine to five' job. Professor Mika Kivimki, who led the study, said: 'We have shown that working long days is associated with a remarkable increase in risk of heart disease. Considering that including a measurement of working hours in a GP interview is so simple and useful, our research presents a strong case that it should become standard practice. This new information should help improve decisions regarding medication for heart disease.' 'It could also be a wake-up call for people who over-work themselves, especially if they already have other risk factors,' Professor Kivimki added. Around 2.6 million Britons have heart disease, where the organ's blood supply is blocked by the build-up of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries (冠状动脉). It is the nation's biggest killer, claiming 101,000 lives in this country every year. Heart attacks occur when a coronary artery becomes completely blocked; if the blood supply is not restored, the section of the heart being supplied by the artery will die.

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled On College Students' Career Planning following the outline given below. You should write at least 120 words but no more than 180 words. On College Students' Career Planning 1．近年来，大学生职业生涯规划越来越受重视 2．分析产生这种现象的原因 3．大学生应该如何规划自己的职业生涯

单选题 Millions die early from air pollution each year. Air pollution costs the global economy more than $5 trillion annually in welfare costs, with the most serious 30 occurring in the developing world. The figures include a number of costs 31 with air pollution. Lost income alone amounts to $225 billion a year. The report includes both indoor and outdoor air pollution. Indoor pollution, which includes 32 like home heating and cooking, has remained 33 over the past several decades despite advances in the area. Levels of outdoor pollution have grown rapidly along with rapid growth in industry and transportation. Director of Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Chris Murray 34 it as an 'urgent call to action.' 'One of the risk factors for premature deaths is the air we breathe, over which individuals have little 35 ,' he said. The effects of air pollution are worst in the developing world, where in some places lost-labor income 36 nearly 1% of GDP. Around 9 in 10 people in low- and middle- income countries live in places where they 37 experience dangerous levels of outdoor air pollution. But the problem is not limited 38 to the developing world. Thousands die prematurely in the U.S. as a result of related illnesses. In many European countries, where diesel (柴油) 39 have become more common in recent years, that number reaches tens of thousands. A. ability B. associated C. consciously D. constant E. control F. damage G. described H. equals I. exclusively J. innovated K. regularly L. relates M. sources N. undermine O. vehicles

单选题 The Phone-Hacking Scandal: The Lowest Low A. The phone-hacking scandal harms more than merely the News of the World: it threatens Rupert Murdoch, the press as a whole, the police and politicians. B. Until this week, the victims in the scandal over the illegal hacking of mobile-phone messages by the News of the World seemed mostly to be celebrities (名流), royals and others too privileged to command much sympathy. The nasty deeds of Britain's biggest-selling Sunday paper—owned by News International, Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper outfit, look more amoral and more seriously criminal. The circle of blame and ill fame is widening. C. The big difference is Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was murdered in Surrey in March 2002. On July 4th The Guardian reported accusations that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working with News of the World journalists, hacked into Dowler's voice-mail in the days after her disappearance, removing some messages to free up space when her account became full. The effect was to make her family think she might still be alive. The relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks in London of July 2005, and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, might also have been targeted. Similarly, the families of two girls murdered in Cambridge shire in 2002 : in an unusual scene in what is an increasingly exaggerated event, the actor Hugh Grant made that link in April, in a secretly recorded interview with a former journalist. Tom Watson, a Labor MP (Member of Parliament), made an even more serious charge in Parliament on July 6th: that News International paid people to interfere in a murder case 'on behalf of known criminals'. The firm says it doesn't understand that accusation. D. Mr. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for hacking voice-mail messages of members of the royal household, along with Clive Goodman, the News of the World's royal correspondent. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, executives at News International insisted that Mr. Goodman was a lone, villain operator. In the past few months that defense has collapsed, amid a flood of civil cases brought by the growing list of hacking victims, pay-offs, and the arrest of more journalists. Yet the Dowler development has deteriorated the scandal—not just because of its ruthless immorality but also because it potentially involves abuse of the course of justice, a new level of criminality. E. If much of this is true, there were no doubts, and few limits, in the way the paper went after its exclusive reports. There might be serious legal and commercial consequences for News International. But others have been disgraced, to at least the police. F. On July 5th News International acknowledged that, last month, it gave the Metropolitan Police a set of e-mails documenting (illegal) payments to police officers from News of the World journalists in 2003 and after. That is only the latest slander (诽谤) cast on various police forces by this affair. The police in Surrey seem to have known about the Dowler hacking but overlooked it. Worse, the Met itself stands accused of failing for several years to notify potential victims of hacking and failing to pursue leads: the evidence for many recent accusations comes from notes seized from Mr. Mulcaire in 2006. The Met launched a fresh probe, under new command, in January. But its contacting of targets remains mysteriously shadowy. G. Whether intentionally or otherwise (News International says it wasn't), the news about police payments switched attention onto Andy Coulson, the News of the World's editor from 2003 to 2007—and thus, indirectly onto David Cameron. Mr. Coulson resigned from the paper in 2007 after Mr. Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire were convicted, though he insisted that he knew nothing of their evil methods. He resigned again, this time from his job as Mr. Cameron's communications chief, in January this year, as the hacking scandal intensified. Mr. Cameron's judgment in hiring Mr. Coulson after his tabloid's (小报)unexpected move now looks more awful than ever. H. As it happens, Mr. Coulson's predecessor as editor, and News International's current chief executive, Rebekah Brooks (above, with Mr. Murdoch), is a close friend of Mr. Cameron, too. Mrs. Brooks was in the editor's chair in 2002; if the latest hacking accusations stand up, her position looks at least as compromised as Mr. Coulson's was in 2007. But, so far, she has denied calls for her resignation, declaring herself 'shocked' at the latest charges and promising to 'vigorously pursue the truth'. Critics wonder whether Mrs. Brooks, who has in the past been indifferently uncooperative with parliamentary inquiries into phone-hacking, or indeed anyone else at News International, with its history of collective confusion, is well-placed to do that. I. For the moment, at least, Mrs. Brooks appears to be protected by what insiders describe as an intense, almost familial (家庭的) bond with Mr. Murdoch, who is said to prize her business insight and contacts: Mr. Murdoch this week called the recent accusations 'miserable', but stood by her. Events might yet test just how much their bond is worth. Public anger has already persuaded several advertisers to suspend their dealings with the News of the World; some readers may choose to boycott it. J. Still, Claire Enders, a media analyst, thinks the commercial impact is likely to be modest, given the paper's dominance in the Sunday newspaper market. Much worse, for Mr. Murdoch, is the slim chance that the scandal might affect his bid to buy the rest of BSkyB, a hugely profitable satellite broadcaster in which News Corporation, his parent company, already has a 39% stake. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, looked set finally to approve the deal after an inquiry on its impact on media plurality ends on July 8th. Meanwhile Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is obliged to consider whether the holders of broadcasting licenses are 'fit and proper'. It is 'closely monitoring the situation'. K. And it isn't only the Murdoch press that is set to feel the opposition. Whereas in America journalism is a respectable, even respected profession, in Britain it has always been regarded as dirty. But it has rarely been so notorious as now. Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labor Party, wants a public inquiry into the culture and regulation of the press; Mr. Cameron agrees that there ought to be one or more inquiries, after criminal proceedings are over. One result might be a change to the current model of newspaper self-regulation; the Press Complaints Commission, the toothless body responsible for it, has handled the hacking affair terribly. L. Most MPs were in the past much more diplomatic about the press, especially the Murdoch stable, which, so exaggerated legend had it, could decide the fate of governments. But the most influential factor for politicians has suddenly shifted. Mr. Miliband's tough standpoint towards News International—he joined the team for Mrs. Brooks' resignation—would have been unthinkable in the Blair years. Mr. Cameron shied away from calling for his friend's head too, but described the accusations as 'truly dreadful'. And there may be more to come in this mad, spreading story.

单选题Many Brazilians cannot read. In 2000, a quarter of those aged 15 and older were functionally illiterate (文盲). Many 26 do not want to. Only one literate adult in three reads books. The 27 Brazilian reads 1.8 non-academic books a year, less than half the figure in Europe and the United States. In a recent survey of reading habits, Brazilians came 27th out of 30 countries. Argentines, their neighbors, 28 18th. The government and businesses are all struggling in different ways to change this. On March 13 the government 29 a National Plan for Books and Reading. This seeks to boost reading, by founding libraries and financing publishers among other things. One discouragement to reading is that books are 30 . Most books have small print-runs, pushing up their price. But Brazilians' indifference to books has deeper roots. Centuries of slavery meant the country's leaders long 31 education. Primary schooling became universal only in the 1990s. All this means Brazil's book market has the biggest growth 32 in the western world. But reading is a difficult habit to form. Brazilians bought fewer books in 2004, 89 million, including textbooks 33 by the government, than they did in 1991. Last year the director of Brazil's national library 34 . He complained that he had half the librarians he needed and termites (白蚁) had eaten much of the 35 . That ought to be a cause for national shame. A. average B. collection C. distributed D. exhibition E. expensive F. launched G. named H. neglected I. normal J. particularly K. potential L. quit M. ranked N. simply O. treasured

单选题 Gender and Brain Men and women do not think in the same ways. Few would disagree with that. Men have better motor and spacial abilities than women, and more monomaniacal (偏执狂的) 28 of thought. Women have better memories, are more 29 , and are better at dealing with several things at once. According to the traditional idea, in the days of hunting and gathering, men spent more time 30 away from camp, their brains needed to be adapted to find their way around. They also spent more time tracking, fighting and killing things. Women by contrast, 31 up the children, so their brains needed to be adapted to enable them to manipulate each other's and their children's emotions to succeed in their world. According to the study of Ragini Verma from the University of Pennsylvania, the left and right sides of the brain are believed to be specialised for logical and intuitive (直觉的) thought 32 . In her view, the cross-talk between them in women helps explain their better memories, sociability and 33 to multitask, all of which benefit from the hemispheres (半球) 34 . In men, by contrast, within-hemisphere links let them focus on things that do not need 35 inputs from both hemispheres. Dr. Verma's other main finding is that most of these 36 are not inborn. Rather, they develop with age. Gender differences in brains—those 37 to this technique, at least—thus manifest themselves mainly when gender itself begins to matter. A. ability E. complex I. exceedingly M. sociable B. annual F. cooperating J. patterns N. visible C. assembly G. differences K. raised O. wandering D. brought H. educated L. respectively

单选题 How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health A. Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New research by Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests so. The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future and this might have dramatic long-term consequences. B. There has been a lot of research into how we deal with the future. For example, the famous marshmallow (棉花糖) studies of Walter Mischel and colleagues showed that being able to resist temptation is predictive of future success. Four-year-old kids were given a marshmallow and were told that if they do not eat that marshmallow and wait for the experimenter to come back, they will get two marshmallows instead of one. Follow-up studies showed that the kids who were able to wait for the bigger future reward became more successful young adults. C. Resisting our impulses for immediate pleasure is often the only way to attain the outcomes that are important to us. We want to keep a slim figure but we also want that last slice of pizza. We want a comfortable retirement, but we also want to drive that dazzling car, go on that dream vacation, or get those gorgeous shoes. Some people are better at delaying gratification (满足) than others. Those people have a better chance of accumulating wealth and keeping a healthy life style. They are less likely to be impulse buyers or smokers, or to engage in unsafe sex. D. Chen's recent findings suggest that an unlikely factor, language, strongly affects our future-oriented behavior. Some languages strongly distinguish the present and the future. Other languages only weakly distinguish the present and the future. Chen's recent research suggests that people who speak languages that weakly distinguish the present and the future are better prepared for the future. They accumulate more wealth and they are better able to maintain their health. The way these people conceptualize the future is similar to the way they conceptualize the present. As a result, the future does not feel very distant and it is easier for them to act in accordance with their future interests. E. Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly (明确地). Every time English-speakers talk about the future, they have to use future markers such as 'will' or 'going to.' In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory (强制性的) . The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say 'Wo qu ting jiangzuo,' which translates to 'I go listen seminar.' Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers. F. Chen analyzed individual-level data from 76 developed and developing countries. This data includes people's economic decisions, such as whether they saved any money last year, the languages they speak at home, demographics (人口统计资料), and cultural factors such as 'saving is an important cultural value for me.' He also analyzed individual-level data on people's retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age. Lastly, he analyzed national-level data that includes national savings rates, country GDP and GDP growth rates, country demographics, and proportions of people speaking different languages. G. People's savings rates are affected by various factors such as their income, education level, age, religious connection, their countries' legal systems, and their cultural values. After those factors were accounted for, the effect of language on people's savings rates turned out to be big. Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people 30 percent less likely to save money for the future. This effect is as large as the effect of unemployment. Being unemployed decreases the likelihood of saving by about 30 percent as well. H. Similar analyses showed that speaking a language that does not have obligatory future markers, such as Mandarin, makes people accumulate more retirement assets, smoke less, exercise more, and generally be healthier in older age. Countries' national savings rates are also affected by language. Having a larger proportion of people speaking languages that does not have obligatory future markers makes national savings rates higher. I. At a more practical level, researchers have been looking for ways to help people act in accordance with their long-term interests. Recent findings suggest that making the future feel closer to the present might improve future-oriented behavior. For instance, researchers recently presented people with renderings of their future selves made using age-progression algorithms (算法) that forecast how physical appearances would change over time. One group of participants saw a digital representation of their current selves in a virtual mirror, and the other group saw an age-morphed version of their future selves. Those participants who saw the age-morphed version of their future selves allocated more money toward a hypothetical savings account. The intervention brought people's future to the present and as a result they saved more for the future. J. Chen's research shows that language structures our future-related thoughts. Language has been used before to alter time perception with surprising effects. Ellen Langer and colleagues famously improved older people's physical health by simple interventions including asking them to talk about the events of twenty years ago as if it they were happening now. Talking about the past as if it were the present changed people's mindsets and their mindsets affected their physical states. Chen's research points at the possibility that the way we talk about the future can shape our mindsets. Language can move the future back and forth in our mental space and this might have dramatic influences on our judgments and decisions.

单选题 A very interesting and important development in science is a device called laser. A laser is a machine which produces a light beam. The light produced by a laser is a very special kind of light. The light, called laser beam, is powerful and can be made to do many things. The laser was first developed in 1960, about half a century ago. There are many different uses for lasers and several different types have been developed. Some use gases to produce the light beam. The gases are heated and cooled, and these processes cause the gases to produce energy in the form of light. One special point of lasers is that the light beam can be stored. If the stored light is then suddenly let go, it is extremely powerful. The light from a laser beam can be used either by storing it and letting it go suddenly, or by using it in a continuous stream. There are three important areas where the control of the laser beam has been put into use by scientists. These areas are industry, communications, and medicine. In each area, the scientists have been able to use the laser to do things that they could not do in another way. The laser has been very helpful. In industry, the laser beam has been used for measurement and drilling. When something large is being built—for example, a large bridge—it is important to have very accurate measurements. By accurate measurement, lasers are also helpful in laying down pipelines over long distances. As lasers become more common in industry, there will be more and more uses for them.