单选题 Questions6-9 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

单选题 中国人的出行方式经过了一个从“体力”到“便捷”的漫长过程。20世纪50至70年代，自行车是中国人最“拉风”的代步工具，也是那个时期最具有符号意义的社会特征。20世纪80年代，摩托车开始逐步成为交通工具中的“新宠”。20世纪90年代初期至现在的20多年间里，随着城市交通和汽车工业的发展，加之忙碌的生活节奏，越来越多的人选择以汽车代步，私家车的数量以惊人的速度与日俱增，老百姓的生活“安”上了车轮。

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write a short essay entitled Should College students Get Involved in Stock Markets or Not? You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words according to the outline given below in Chinese.

单选题 苏绣(Suzhou embroidery)是苏州地区刺绣产品的总称，其具体发源地在苏州吴县一带。早在两千多年前的春秋时期，吴国已将刺绣用于服饰。到了明代，绘画艺术的发展推动了刺绣的发展。刺绣艺人结合绘画作品进行再制作，所绣佳作栩栩如生，有“以针作画”之称。清代是苏绣的全盛时期，真可谓流派繁衍，名手竞秀。如今，中国苏绣工艺已达到很高的水平，绣品多次在国际国内获奖。2006年5月20日，苏绣经国务院(the State Council)批准列入第一批国家级非物质文化遗产名录。

单选题 For London-based Michelle Brideau, 10 years in the travel industry felt like an eternity. What started as low pay and high stress—but great perks—had evolved into low pay, high stress, no perks and lots of competition from the internet. Brideau was ready for a change. She considered running a mobile coffee cart for commuters in her neighbourhood, but the idea of London winters spent outside quickly nixed those plans. She decided on a career in technology. The problem: no experience. At some point in almost everyone's career comes the desire to change fields and try something completely different. But one of the most common stumbling blocks to making a dramatic career change is a lack of experience in the new field. Gaining that experience often means taking what can be felt like a giant step backwards in your career, whether it's by re-entering the students' world or signing on for an internship. Choices like these can be financially draining in the short term, but the long-term hope is that they will pay off before too long. Brideau needed to learn to code if she was going to launch a career in technology. But she'd been under the impression it would take years of schoolwork to learn what she needed in order to make the switch, she said in an email. Then she heard about the Makers Academy, a highly selective coding program in London that teaches web development. The intensive 10-week program, (it now costs ￡7200 and is three months long) meant Brideau was studying code whenever she 'wasn't eating or sleeping.' With the coding experience under her belt, Brideau spent two months looking for the right job or internship. 'I made sure to get out into the developer community as much as possible: meet ups, events, conferences, job fairs and such,' she said. 'I also went to interviews, was invited to do code exercises as part of the job application process, and I continued to study at home.' Eventually, through the connections she made, Brideau landed a six-month paid code-writing internship at London-based Enternships, which placed students and recent graduates in positions with starts ups and small businesses. Once her internship is over, she hopes to find a position as a junior coder. 'The hardest part was taking the leap to doing something so completely different than I have ever done previously,' said Brideau. She likened it to the move she had made from Canada to the UK. 'You keep moving forward with a lot of unanswered questions not knowing how it will all turn out until one day you find yourself at home in your new surroundings.'

单选题 中国经济年度人物 中国经济年度人物(Chinese Economy Person of the Year)评选是由CCTV在2000年开始发起的。作为中国经济领域的“奥斯卡”(Oscar)，它是中国国内最具专业性和影响力的一个奖项，也是中国认知度最高的一个品牌。每年的评选结果在该年年底或下一年度之初以颁奖典礼的方式在CCTV发布。获奖人物为积极推动中国经济发展和社会进步的一些企业家、经济学家或政府官员。这些年度人物不仅在获奖当年是中国经济领域的模范，而且在获奖之后也会对中国经济产生越来越大的影响。

单选题 Opportunists and Competitors A. Growth, reproduction, and daily metabolism all require an organism to expend energy. The expenditure of energy is essentially a process of budgeting, just as finances are budgeted. If all of one's money is spent on clothes, there may be none left to buy food or go to the movies. Similarly, a plant or animal cannot squander all its energy on growing a big body if none would be left over for reproduction, for this is the surest way to extinction. B. All organisms, therefore, allocate energy to growth, reproduction, maintenance, and storage. No choice is involved; this allocation comes as part of the genetic package from the parents. Maintenance for a given body design of an organism is relatively constant. Storage is important, but ultimately that energy will be used for maintenance, reproduction, or growth. Therefore the principal differences in energy allocation are likely to be between growth and reproduction. C. Almost all of an organism's energy can be diverted to reproduction, with very little allocated to building the body. Organisms at this extreme are 'opportunists'. At the other extreme are 'competitors', almost all of whose resources are invested in building a huge body, with a bare minimum allocated to reproduction. D. Dandelions are good examples of opportunists. Their seed heads raised just high enough above the ground to catch the wind, the plants are no bigger than they need be, their stems are hollow, and all the rigidity comes from their water content. Thus, a minimum investment has been made in the body that becomes a platform for seed dispersal. These very short-lived plants reproduce prolifically; that is to say they provide a constant rain of seed in the neighborhood of parent plants. E. A new plant will spring up wherever a seed falls on a suitable soil surface, but because they do not build big bodies, they cannot compete with other plants for space, water, or sunlight. These plants are termed opportunists because they rely on their seeds' falling into settings where competing plants have been removed by natural processes, such as along an eroding riverbank, on landslips, or where a tree falls and creates a gap in the forest canopy. F. Opportunists must constantly invade new areas to compensate for being displaced by more competitive species. Human landscapes of lawns, fields, or flowerbeds provide settings with bare soil and a lack of competitors that are perfect habitats for colonization by opportunists. Hence, many of the strongly opportunistic plants are the common weeds of fields and gardens. G. Because each individual is short-lived, the population of an opportunist species is likely to be adversely affected by drought, bad winters, or floods. If their population is tracked through time, it will be seen to be particularly unstable—soaring and plummeting in irregular cycles. H. The opposite of an opportunist is a competitor. These organisms tend to have big bodies, are long-lived, and spend relatively little effort each year on reproduction. I. An oak tree is a good example of a competitor. A massive oak claims its ground for 200 years or more, out-competing all other would-be canopy trees by casting a dense shade and drawing up any free water in the soil. The leaves of an oak tree taste foul because they are rich in tannins, a chemical that renders them distasteful or indigestible to many organisms. The tannins are part of the defense mechanism that is essential to longevity. J. Although oaks produce thousands of acorns, the investment in a crop of acorns is small compared with the energy spent on building leaves, trunk, and roots. Once an oak tree becomes established, it is likely to survive minor cycles of drought and even fire. A population of oaks is likely to be relatively stable through time, and its survival is likely to depend more on its ability to withstand the pressures of competition or predation than on its ability to take advantage of chance events. K. It should be noted, however, that the pure opportunist or pure competitor is rare in nature, as most species fall between the extremes of a continuum, exhibiting a blend of some opportunistic and some competitive characteristics. L. Oak wood has a density of about 0.75g/cm3, great strength and hardness, and is very resistant to insect and fungal attack because of its high tannin content. It also has very appealing grain markings, particularly when quarter-sawn. M. Oak planking was common on high status Viking longships in the 9th and 10th centuries. The wood was hewn(砍) from green logs, by axe and wedge, to produce radial planks, similar to quarter-sawn timber. Wide, quarter-sawn boards of oak have been prized since the Middle Ages for use in interior paneling of prestigious buildings such as the debating chamber of the House of Commons in London and in the construction of fine furniture. N. Oak wood, from Quercus robur and Quercus petraea, was used in Europe for the construction of ships until the 19th century, and was the principal timber used in the construction of European timber-framed buildings. Today oak wood is still commonly used for furniture making and flooring, timber frame buildings, and for veneer production. Barrels in which wines, sherry, and spirits such as brandy, Scotch whisky and Bourbon whiskey are aged are made from European and American oak. The use of oak in wine can add many different dimensions to wine based on the type and style of the oak. Oak barrels, which may be charred before use, contribute to the colour, taste, and aroma of the contents, imparting a desirable oaky vanillin flavour to these drinks. The great dilemma for wine producers is to choose between French and American oak woods. French oaks (Quercus robur, Quercus petraea) give the wine greater refinement and are chosen for the best wines since they increase the price compared to those aged in American oak wood. American oak contributes greater texture and resistance to ageing, but produces more violent wine bouquets. Oak wood chips are used for smoking fish, meat, cheeses and other foods. O. Japanese oak is used in the making of professional drums from manufacturer Yamaha Drums. The higher density of oak gives the drum a brighter and louder tone compared to traditional drum materials such as maple and birch. In hill states of India, besides fuelwood and timber, the local people use oak wood for making agricultural implements. The leaves are used as fodder during lean period and bedding for livestock.

单选题 乒乓球在我国被誉为“国球”，是全世界最流行的球类运动之一。乒乓球像一个社会符号，在中国人心中占有重要的地位。乒乓球运动集健身性、竞技性和娱乐性为一体，其独特的魅力影响着几代中国人。经常打乒乓球，不但能增强体质，而且能锻炼一个人的反应能力，是一项非常有益健康的运动。中国乒乓球队成立于1952年，迄今为止已在世界三大赛事(奥运会、世界乒乓球锦标赛和乒乓球世界杯)中获得了很多枚金牌，取得了举世闻名的成就。

单选题 Directions: For this part, you are allowed 30 minutes to write an essay on honesty by referring to the saying 'A liar is not believed when he speaks the truth.' You can cite examples to illustrate your point. You should write at least 150 words but no more than 200 words.