Passage Four

If you are a youngish man who sits on a European corporate board, you should worry: the chances are that your chairman wants to give your seat to a woman. In January the lower house of France's parliament approved a new law which would force companies to lift the proportion of women on their boards to 40% by 2016. The law would oblige France's 40 biggest listed firms to put women into 169 seats currently occupied by men. Spain has also introduced a quota at 40%, to be reached by 2015. Italy and the Netherlands are contemplating similar measures. This week Britain's government threatened to make companies report formally on their recruitment of female directors. Compared with America, where women held 15% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies in 2009 according to Catalyst, a lobbying organization, European countries have relatively few female board members. Britain is not too far behind at 12% , according to a survey of Europe's 300 biggest firms by the European Professional Women's Network (EPWN). Spain, Italy, France and Germany, however, all lag behind the European average of 10%. The exception is Scandinavia, and in particular, Norway, where quotas for women on boards originated. In 2005 the government gave listed firms two years to put women in 40% of board seats on pain of liquidation. Businessmen howled. Riulf Rustad, a professional investor with stakes in several Norwegian companies, said 70% of the new recruits would fail. In fact, there have been no obvious disasters. But a close look at Norway nonetheless suggests that imposing high gender quotas with tight deadlines can be bad for companies. The usual arguments for adding women directors are that diverse boards are more creative and innovative, less inclined to "groupthink" and likely to be more independent from senior management. Numerous studies show that high proportions of women directors coincide with superior corporate performance. But there is little academically accepted evidence of a causal relationship. It may be that thriving firms allow themselves the luxury of attending to social issues such as board diversity, whereas poorly performing ones batten down the hatches. Women do seem to be particularly effective board members at companies where things are going wrong. A 2008 paper on the impact of female directors by Ren6e Adams and Daniel Ferreira of the University of Queensland and the London School of Economics found that bosses of American firms whose shares perform poorly are more likely to be fired if the firm has a relatively high number of women directors. On average, however, the paper concluded that firms perform worse as the proportion of women on the board increases. There is certainly no shortage of companies capable of producing stellar results with few or no women on the board. LVMH, a successful French luxury-goods group whose customers are mostly women, has had just one female director over the past ten years: Delphine Arnault, daughter of the firm's chief executive and controlling shareholder. Nor is there any doubt that in many cases low female representation also reflects a broader lack of meritocracy in corporate culture. In France, for instance, interlocking board memberships are common. Women, and many other deserving businesspeople, are excluded from the system. Emma Marcegaglia, head of Confindustria, Italy's main business lobby, says the dearth of women on boards and in management mainly reflects a controlling male elite at the top of business, the members of which have hardly changed for the past 30 years. (Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister and a prominent tycoon, last year referred to Ms Marcegaglia as a "velina" or showgirl.) But what most prevents women from reaching the boardroom, say bosses and headhunters, is lack of hands-on experience of a firm's core business. Too many women go into functional roles such as accounting, marketing or human resources early in their careers rather than staying in the mainstream, driving profits. Some do so by choice, but others fear they will not get ahead in more chauvinist parts of a business. Getting men to show up at every board meeting—another effect of having more women on boards—is all very well, but what firms really need is savvy business advice. Yet according to EPWN, the pipeline of female executives is "almost empty": women occupy only 3% of executive roles on boards, compared with 12% of non-executive ones. That suggests that the best way to increase the number of women on boards is to ensure that more women gain the right experience further down the corporate hierarchy. That may be a slower process than imposing a quota, but it is also likely to be a more meaningful and effective one.

What do you need to do in order to understand the lecture? Now there are four things that I'm going to talk about. The first thing is that you need to be aware of all of the【T1】______ that carry meaning. You all know that words carry meaning. So you've got to be aware of the 【T2】______, but there are【T3】______. For one thing, you need to be aware of【T4】______. Let me give you an example. "I went to the bar." "I went to the bar." It makes a difference. In the second example, I'm stressing the fact that【T5】______and not someone else so that this means stress has some meaning. Now the next thing you might want to listen for is【T6】______. For example, if I say "He came." "He came?" There are two different meanings. One is a【T7】______, the other one is a【T8】______. And another thing you need to listen for is【T9】______. For instance, "Can you see, Mary?" VS "Can you see Mary?" da da DA da... da da da DA da. Those two mean something different. In the first one, they are talking【T10】______ to Mary, while the second one means "Can you see Mary... over there?"

当汽车在望不到边际的高原上奔驰，扑入你的视野的，是黄绿错综的一条大毯子——黄的，那是土，未开垦的处女土，几十万年前由伟大的自然力所堆积成功的黄土高原的外壳；绿的呢，是人类劳力战胜自然的成果，是麦田，和风吹送，翻起了一轮一轮的绿波——这时你会真心佩服昔人所造的两个字“麦浪”，若不是妙手偶得，便确是经过锤炼的语言的精华。

Healthy adults take approximately 10-14 breaths per minute, but some people breathe 20 or more times—this can lead to feeling out of breath and a range of other symptoms such as tingling in the fingers and around the lips, heart palpitations, tiredness, inabilityto concentrate on and irritable bowel syndrome, explains Fiona【M1】______Troup, a physiotherapist at Six Physio in London. The symptoms are a sign you're breathing through the mouthinstead of doing deeper breathing through the nose. This leads a【M2】______fall in carbon dioxide levels in the blood—as a result of, oxygen【M3】______can't be released to the muscles and organs. This causes muscle spasms, often in the colon where can【M4】______exacerbate or lead to IBS; meanwhile if the brain is derived of【M5】______sufficient oxygen levels, it can cause confusion and dizziness. "Fast breathing is basically a bad habit, often results from【M6】______period of elevated stress, back or neck pain, emotional trauma or【M7】______surgery," says Ms Troup. One seminal study suggested as many as10 per cent of those attending general practice suffered this【M8】______problem. Over-breathing, as it is known, shouldn't have any long-term health implications, says Stephen Spiro, professor of respiratory medicine at University College London Hospitals anddeputy chair of the British Lung Foundation. Therefore, rapid【M9】______breathing and breathless can be a sign of lung disease, particularly【M10】______asthma and bronchitis. With these conditions, the airways in the lungs narrow, so it's physically harder for the air to travel in and out.

He has been traveling around this area for a long time and every day on the sides of the dikes he can see the cattle which seems to be the only living creature in these desolate surroundings.

车从这里的地铁爬上天桥，颤颤巍巍地从又乱又脏的街区开过去，往下一望，有时会突然看到一栋破极了的大楼的窗子里，有一些脸色神秘的东方人，穿着日式的大黑衣服，在练拳。再往下一望，看到一个穿脏花裙子的黑老女人，摇摆着生了痛风病的胖腿，拿着一个大塑料袋，气息奄奄地走过去。要是心情恍惚的话，会以为自己走到好莱坞的影城里去了，这里正好是在拍犯罪片。

{{B}}SECTION A MINI-LECTUREIn this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the mini-lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the mini-lecture, please complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE and write NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each gap. Make sure the word(s) you fill in is (are) both grammatically and semantically acceptable. You may use the blank sheet for note-taking.You have THIRTY seconds to preview the gap-filling task.{{/B}}

“人们的生活越来越富裕，但却远不如以前那样快乐了”，这个现象似乎早已成为现代生活永恒的矛盾之一。一个可能的答案就潜藏在我们的心理因素中，即如何才能够满足。 我们对于地位、财富的需求从来都不是孤立定位的，而是在与参照组——通常是那些我们自认为与其地位相当的人——比较之后得出的。我们无法孤立地对现今所拥有的一切心存感激，我们也无法铭记自己在历史进程中所取得的成功。只有当我们所拥有的和我们共同成长的朋友、一起工作的同事一样多甚至比他们更多的时候，我们才会感到幸福。

PASSAGE TWO

When parents have to work at daytime or out of town, kids are usually looked after by their grandparents. There are certainly advantages and disadvantages of this practice. The following are two excerpts about this issue. Write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should: 1. summarize the advantages and disadvantages revealed in both excerpts, and then 2. express your own opinion on this practice.Excerpt 1 In a Grandparents.com survey of 10,000 grandparents across the country, 61 percent of those polled said they take care of their grandkids on a regular basis. For some grandparents such as Jacqueline Rafla, a grandmother of 12, caring for grandchildren keeps them going. "It's life, it's youth," she said. "You're reliving your own children through these little children." This trend toward grandparent care is in part because of the recession. According to National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, 40 percent of grandparents now living within an hour's drive of their grandchildren provide regular child care—and just eight percent of grandparents receive any pay. Dr. Georgia Witkin, senior editor and grandparenting expert for Grandparents.com, said 92 percent of grandparents don't want to be paid for watching their grandchildren, they just want to be appreciated for what they do for the family. "A lot of us are busy working and so forth, but this is part of what we've done before, we'd do it again, and we're doing it for the family in hard economic times," Witkin said. "The family comes together. If you're helping your son or daughter work, it's good for you. It's good for your grandchildren. Instead of leaving them the money... help out now and get appreciation." Witkin added the benefits are also present for the children with grandparent care, including a low adult-child ratio, which she said, is much better than at daycare. In addition, she said the food is better and the children are getting unconditional love. Another benefit or grandparent care, she added, is that several studies have suggested children who have a great grandparent presence have less delinquency and less drug abuse.Excerpt 2 Anyone with children can tell you that raising them is a challenge. Grandparents have already met that challenge once with their own children. But now many grandparents are called upon to meet it again with the next generation. According to the U.S. Census, 4.5 million children are living in grandparent-headed homes. Most grandparents raising grandchildren are between 55 and 64. Almost 25 percent are over 65. Also, a growing number are far more likely to be persons of color who are living in poverty. For these and other reasons, parenting a second time can be even harder. The grandparents are older than the first time they parented and may have less energy. Also, the reasons for having to parent a grandchild often involve traumatic events. Grandmothers caring for or raising grandchildren suffer more stress and depression than grandmothers who aren't caregivers. These are older women who may have health needs of their own. So caring for a grandchild who may have health problems, developmental challenges, or an increased need for care creates more stress for these grandmothers. The age of the grandchildren can be a factor, too. Younger children are more physically demanding. But, older children are often more emotionally and mentally demanding. You may be willing, and even eager, to raise your grandchildren. But no matter how much you love them, your life will change.

在得病以前，我受父母宠爱，在家中横行霸道，一旦隔离，拘禁在花园山坡上一幢小房子里，顿感被打入冷宫，十分郁郁不得志起来。一个春天的傍晚，园中百花怒放，父母在园中设宴，霎时宾客云集，笑语四溢。我在山坡的小屋里，悄悄掀起窗帘，窥见园中大干世界，一片喧闹。自己的哥姐，堂表弟兄，也穿插其间，个个喜气洋洋。一霎时，一阵被人摒弃，为世所遗忘的悲愤兜上心头，禁不住痛哭起来。

With occasional breaks for war, the rates of death and infection in the Europe and America dropped steadily through the 19th and 20th centuries.

为了使广大植物爱好者有更多与茶花亲密接触的机会，本届茶花展的布展范围延伸至整个园区，为赏花游客带来便利。

A knowledge of several languages is essential to other majors' study because without them one can read books only in translation.

Five Bad Study HabitsIf you have prepared for the tests for many hours, and yet you still fail in the exam, you might have some bad study habits you need to rectify. Here, we discuss five bad study habits to help you check against your study behaviours.I.【T1】_____【T1】______— Students try to write down【T2】_____ of a lecture【T2】______— SOLUTION:a)Revisit the information and put it into a chart or【T3】_____【T3】______b)Review your notes from days pastc)Reflect and make【T4】_____ between key concepts【T4】______d)Create a(n)【T5】_____ from your notes【T5】______II. Highlighting the hook— Abuse highlighter without doing【T6】_____【T6】______— SOLUTION:a)Use highlighted information to create a practice examb)Put highlighted words onto【T7】_____ and practice them【T7】______c)Develop a(n)【T8】_____ highlighting strategy【T8】______III. Rewriting notes— Students assume that【T9】_____ is good for memorization【T9】______— SOLUTION:a)【T10】_____ class notes with classmates【T10】______b)Create a practice exam from classmate's notesc)Exchange practice examsd)【T11】_____ until you understand the material fully【T11】______IV. Rereading the chapter— Reread the chapter before an exam— SOLUTION【T12】_____ rereading chapters into the active review steps【T12】______and practice testV. Memorizing definitions— Example: the definition of "propaganda"— SOLUTION:a)Memorize the definitionsb)Give yourself a(n)【T13】_____ practice test【T13】______c)Explain the definition and【T14】_____ of a term【T14】______d)【T15】_____ the term to others【T15】______e)Test and retest yourself

PASSAGE THREE

他是从后门进来的。