{{B}}Text 3{{/B}}
The number of city schools put on a
list for strict scrutiny by the state for poor academic performance went up
slightly this year. and the number of city schools taken off the list by showing
improvement dropped, the state's commissioner of education announced
yesterday. Ten city schools—now at risk of being shut down—were
added to the list of Schools Under Registration Review, known as SURR, bringing
the total in the city m 40. Statewide. 61 schools are under review, said the
commissioner, Richard Mills. The addition of 10 city schools reverses what had
been a trend in the past few years: the number of schools on the list had been
falling. There were 55 schools in 2003, 46 in 2004 and 35 last year, an all-time
low. But this year a new factor was at work: The state raised
the level of performance required to pass its standards. In addition, 6 of the
10 newly named schools are middle schools--and those schools have for years
confounded educators by resisting the improvements that have worked in lower
grades and even in high schools. Three city schools were removed from the list
this year for improvement in academic performance, but that number was
significantly lower than the number removed in each of the past several years.
For instance, 16 schools were taken off the list last year.
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein observed that the number of endangered
schools still remains at a near-record low. "Nevertheless. we cannot accept
failing performance by any of our schools for any reason," he said. "If a school
proves incapable of providing a high-quality education m our students despite
efforts to improve it, it will be closed." He said 8 of the 40 schools that have
been on the list were scheduled m be closed this year and 5 more will be closed
next year. The state also expanded its review process for the first time this
year m District 75, which covers special education schools, and one District 75
school, Public School 12 in the Bronx, was put on the list.
Despite the additions, Mr. Mills said he was pleased. "I think it's
impressive since we have been rinsing the bar," he said. "The city has
essentially been staying ahead of a moving locomotive."
Elsewhere in the state, three schools in Buffalo and two in Syracuse were
added to the list. The 10 New York City schools on the list are Legacy School
for Integrated Studies in Manhattan; P.S. 220, P.S. 12, Junior High School 123
and Middle School 302 in the Bronx; J.H.S. 265. J.H.S. 57, M.S. 143,
Intermediate School 291 and P.S. 12 in Brooklyn. The three schools removed from
the list are P.S. 140 in the Bronx. Repertory Company High School in Manhattan
and EBC/ENY High School for Public Safety and Law in
Brooklyn.
It is commonly supposed that the health of Long Island Sound is chiefly the responsibility of the shoreline communities in Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut. This is largely true. It is also true, however, that New York City has long been a major contributor to the environmental ills that torture this noblest of American estuaries. The main reason is four old municipal sewage treatment plants on the East River. Every day of every year, these plants deposit hundreds of thousands of gallons of partly treated wastewater into the river, which then, with tidal certainty, propels the polluted water into the Sound itself The most damaging of the pollutants leaving the plants is nitrogen—useful as a fertilizer on land but, in sufficient quantities, fatal to bodies of water like the Sound, where it stimulates the growth of bacteria and algae and robs the water of oxygen. This condition is known as hypoxia, and it suppresses marine life. Roughly half the nitrogen comes from treatment plants and other sources in about 80 shoreline communities, the other half comes from the New York City plants. It is thus cause for great celebration that the city agreed last week to settle a longstanding legal action and spend at least $700 million to upgrade these four plants, cutting their nitrogen output by nearly 60 percent by 2017. Audubon New York, a leader among the environmental groups that helped shape the agreement and move it forward, when negotiations seemed to falter, called the agreement an historic moment in the struggle to restore the Sound to good health. In retrospect, the most important moment in that struggle the moment from which all else has flowed, including last week's agreement—came m 1994, when New York and Connecticut. after sustained pressure from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, approved a comprehensive plan to clean up the Sound. The city's main responsibility was to modernize its sewage treatment plants. The Giuliani administration left the bulk of the task to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Alarmed by the project's estimated $1.3 billion price tag, Mr. Bloomberg dispatched Christopher Ward, then the environmental commissioner, to Europe and elsewhere to find new, more cost-efficient waste treatment technologies. In due course, Mr. Ward and his counterpart in Albany, Erin Crotty, reached an agreement in principle to reform the plants at well under the original cost. Mr. Ward and Ms. Crotty left public service, but after further debating aimed partly at ensuring that future city administrations could not wiggle out of the deal, and after further prodding by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, their successors. Emily Lloyd and Denise Sheehan, brought the matter to a close. This does not mean the Sound is no longer at risk. The Sound passes through the densest population corridor in the country, and will remain forever stressed by the 20 million people who live within 50 miles of its shores. Thus the shoreline communities in Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut must do more than ever to contain pollution.
{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for
each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Punishment depends as much on politics
as it does on crime: crime rates have been stable in recent years but there' s
been a striking increase in the prison population, And because populism is
coming so much to{{U}} (1) {{/U}}the political agendas, politicians are
advocating sharp increases in penalties to take{{U}} (2) {{/U}}of
public unease. The question is how far this will get. In the 21st century weak
governments might try to win legitimacy by being especially{{U}} (3)
{{/U}}on crime. That could mean high prison populations and draconian{{U}}
(4) {{/U}}such as those adopted in the United States in recent
years. Luckily, there remain significant differences between the
UK and the USA: social divisions are less extreme and racial{{U}} (5)
{{/U}}are not as high.{{U}} (6) {{/U}}there is a great deal of minor
violent crime here, rates of murder—{{U}} (7) {{/U}}particularly
fuel public anxieties—are much{{U}} (8) {{/U}}because guns have
not been so widely{{U}} (9) {{/U}}. It' s unlikely that this will change
greatly: the{{U}} (10) {{/U}}to tighten up the gun laws in Britain will
continue ,and all{{U}} (11) {{/U}}the toughest criminals will still have
a view about what is and what isn't "acceptable violence. So I
don' t believe we will see a huge{{U}} (12) {{/U}}in violent crime, but
I{{U}} (13) {{/U}}rates of property crime and crimes of
opportunity to remain high. There will also be much more electronic fraud
because it' s so hard to{{U}} (14) {{/U}}and prevent. This is an
important problem for business, but not one that{{U}} (15) {{/U}}much
popular agitation. It' s unlikely we'll see the return of the
death penalty: the police are{{U}} (16) {{/U}}about its effectiveness
and its reintroduction would be highly problematic{{U}} (17)
{{/U}}the recent Council of Europe protocol outlawing its use.{{U}} (18)
{{/U}}punishment remains a pretty accurate temperature gauge, though:{{U}}
(19) {{/U}}there is significant political pressure for the death
penalty, it' s a{{U}} (20) {{/U}} of harsher attitudes towards crime
generally.
Tuning in round the clock, via satellite or internet blog, to any bout of mayhem anywhere, you might not think the world was becoming a more peaceable place. But in some ways it is, and measurably so. A recent Human Security Report released by the Liu Institute at the University of British Columbia registers a 40% drop in the number of armed conflicts between 1992 and 2003, with the worst wars, those claiming more than a thousand lives in battle, down by 80%. While 28 armed struggles for self-determination ignited or reignited between 1991 and 2004, an encouraging 43 others were
contained
or doused.
Yet measured in a different way, from the point of view of the half of the world"s population that is female, argues the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces, the world is an awfully violent place, and not just in its war zones. Men still fill most of the body bags in wartime, including in civil wars, even on DCAF"s figures, but their sisters, mothers, wives and daughters, it argues in a new report entitled "Women in an Insecure World", face nothing short of a "hidden gendercide".
Violence against women is nothing new. DCAF"s contribution is to collate the many figures and estimates—not all of them easily verifiable, it has to be said—on everything from infanticide to rape (in both war and peace), dowry deaths, sex trafficking and domestic violence (in richer countries as well as poorer ones).
According to one UN estimate cited by DCAF, between 113m and 200m women are now demographically "missing". This gender gap is a result of the aborting of girl foetuses and infanticide in countries where boys are preferred; lack of food and medical attention that goes instead to brothers, fathers, husbands and sons; so-called "honour killings" and dowry deaths; and other sorts of domestic violence. It implies that each year between 1.5m and 3m women and girls are lost to gender-based violence. In other words, every two to four years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of Hitler"s Holocaust.
Women between the ages of 15 and 44 are more likely to be maimed or die from violence inflicted one way or another by their menfolk than through cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war combined. Poor health care means that 600,000 women are lost each year to childbirth (a toll roughly equal annually to that of the Rwandan genocide). The World Health Organisation estimates that 6,000 girls a day (more than 2m a year), mostly in the poor world, undergo genital mutilation. Other WHO figures suggest that, around the world, one woman in five is likely to be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime.
This year the combined advertising revenues of Google and
Yahoo! will rival the combined prime-time ad revenues of America's three big
television networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, predicts Advertising Age. 41. ______. And
this week online advertising made another leap forward. The latest
innovation comes from Google, which has begun testing a new auction-based
service for display advertising. It already provides a service called AdSense.
It works rather like an advertising agency, automatically placing sponsored
links and other ads on third-party websites. Google then splits the revenue with
the owners of those websites, who can range from multinationals to individuals
publishing blogs, as online journals are known. Google's new
services extend AdSense in three ways. 42. ______ This provides both more
flexibility and control, says Patrick Keane, Google's head of sales strategy.
Companies trying to raise awareness of a brand often want a high level of
control over where their ads appear. The second change involves
pricing. 43. ______. Click-through marketing tends to be aimed at people who
already know they want to buy something and are searching for product and price
information, whereas display advertising is more often used to persuade people
to buy things in the first instance. The third change is that
Google will now offer animated ads--but nothing too flashy or annoying, insists
Mr. Keane. Google has long been extremely conservative about the use of
advertising; it still plans to use only small, text-based ads on its own search
sites. 44. ______. This could fuel online ad-growth even further.
Worldwide ad revenue on the internet grew by 21% in 2004, and it is expected to
continue at that pace for the next few years, says ZenithOptimedia, a research
firm. As Google and Yahoo! are two of the most widely visited sites, this
greatly benefits them. 45. ______. Terry Semel, Yahoo!' s chief executive,
believes there is a lot more growth to come as companies become more familiar
with online advertising. Other innovations in online marketing are
said to be in the pipeline. Local search and its associated advertising
opportunities are one huge growth area. This week, Yahoo! appointed another top
executive to its media group, fuelling industry speculation that the website may
start to produce its own entertainment content. Television stations would then
have a lot more to worry about than just losing ad revenue to the internet.
[A] Instead of Google's software analyzing third-party websites to
determine from their content what relevant ads to place on them, advertisers
will instead be able to select the specific sites where they want their ads to
appear.
[B] Google recently announced a net profit of $ 369m in its first quarter
from revenue that soared to $1.3 billion, up 93% compared with the same period a
year earlier. Yahoo!'s first-quarter net profits more than doubled to $ 205m on
revenue of $1.2 billion, up 55% from a year earlier.
[C] Many big firms still allocate only 2-4% of their marketing budgets to
the internet, although it represents about 15% of consumers' media
consumption--a share that is growing. Many young people already spend more time
online than they do watching TV.
[D] It will, says the trade magazine, represent a "watershed moment" in the
evolution of the internet as an advertising medium. A 30-second prime-time TV ad
was once considered the most effective--and the most expensive--form of
advertising. But that was before the internet got going.
[E] But many of its AdSense partners might well be tempted by the prospect
of earning a share of revenue from display and animated ads too, especially as
such ads are likely to be more appealing to some of the big-brand
advertisers.[F] Sites such as eBay, the leading online auctioneer, and
Craigslist, which hosts local sites, are soaking up large amounts of spending
that might otherwise have gone on classified advertising-and for everything from
used cars to job vacancies. Yahoo! is expanding heavily into entertainment, with
film and video clips providing another avenue for advertisers.[G] Potential
internet advertisers must bid for their ad to appear on a "cost-per-thousand"
(known as CPM) basis. CPM bids will have to compete against rival bids for the
same ad space from those wanting to pay on a "cost-per-click" basis, the way
search terms are presently sold.
Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living. The making and selling of drugs has a long history and is closely linked, like medical practice itself, with the belief in magic. Only during the last hundred years or so has the development of scientific techniques made it possible for some of the causes of symptoms to be understood, so that more accurate diagnosis has become possible. The doctor is now able to follow up the correct diagnosis of many illnesses with specific treatment of their causes. In many other illnesses, of which the causes remain unknown, it is still limited, like the unqualified prescriber, to the treatment of symptoms. The doctor is trained to decide when to treat symptoms only and when to attack the cause—this is the essential difference between medical prescribing and self-medication.
The advance of technology has brought about much progress in some fields of medicine, including the development of scientific drug therapy. In many countries public health organization is improving and people"s nutritional standards have risen. Parallel with such beneficial trends are two which have an adverse effect. One is the use of high-pressure advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, which has tended to influence both patients and doctors and has led to the overuse of drugs generally. The other is the emergence of the sedentary society with its faulty ways of life: lack of exercise, over-eat-ing, unsuitable eating, insufficient sleep, excessive smoking and drinking. People with disorders arising from faulty habits such as these, as well as from unhappy human relationships, often resort to self-medication and so add the taking of pharmaceuticals to the list. Advertisers go to great lengths to catch this market.
Clever advertising, aimed at chronic sufferers who will try anything because doctors have not been able to cure them, can induce such faith in a preparation, particularly if steeply priced, that it will produce—by suggestion—a very real effect in some people. Advertisements are also aimed at people suffering from mild complaints such as simple colds and coughs, which clear up by themselves within a short time.
These are the main reasons why laxatives, indigestion remedies, painkillers, tonics, vitamin and iron tablets and many other preparations are found in quantity in many households. It is doubtful whether taking these things ever improves a person"s health ; it may even make it worse. Worse because the preparation may contain unsuitable ingredients; worse because the taker may become dependent on them; worse because they might be taken in excess; worse because they may cause poisoning, and worse of all because symptoms of some serious underlying cause may be masked and therefore medical help may not be sought.
{{B}}Text 1{{/B}}
It is commonly supposed that the health
of Long Island Sound is chiefly the responsibility of the shoreline communities
in Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut. This is largely true. It is
also true, however, that New York City has long been a major contributor to the
environmental ills that torture this noblest of American estuaries.
The main reason is four old municipal sewage treatment plants on the East
River. Every day of every year, these plants deposit hundreds of thousands of
gallons of partly treated wastewater into the river, which then, with tidal
certainty, propels the polluted water into the Sound itself The
most damaging of the pollutants leaving the plants is nitrogen—useful as a
fertilizer on land but, in sufficient quantities, fatal to bodies of water like
the Sound, where it stimulates the growth of bacteria and algae and robs the
water of oxygen. This condition is known as hypoxia, and it suppresses marine
life. Roughly half the nitrogen comes from treatment plants and other sources in
about 80 shoreline communities, the other half comes from the New York City
plants. It is thus cause for great celebration that the city
agreed last week to settle a longstanding legal action and spend at least $700
million to upgrade these four plants, cutting their nitrogen output by nearly 60
percent by 2017. Audubon New York, a leader among the environmental groups that
helped shape the agreement and move it forward, when negotiations seemed to
falter, called the agreement an historic moment in the struggle to restore the
Sound to good health. In retrospect, the most important moment
in that struggle the moment from which all else has flowed, including last
week's agreement—came m 1994, when New York and Connecticut. after sustained
pressure from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, approved a
comprehensive plan to clean up the Sound. The city's main responsibility was to
modernize its sewage treatment plants. The Giuliani administration left the bulk
of the task to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Alarmed by the project's
estimated $1.3 billion price tag, Mr. Bloomberg dispatched Christopher Ward,
then the environmental commissioner, to Europe and elsewhere to find new, more
cost-efficient waste treatment technologies. In due course, Mr. Ward and his
counterpart in Albany, Erin Crotty, reached an agreement in principle to reform
the plants at well under the original cost. Mr. Ward and Ms. Crotty left public
service, but after further debating aimed partly at ensuring that future city
administrations could not wiggle out of the deal, and after further prodding by
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, their successors. Emily Lloyd and Denise
Sheehan, brought the matter to a close. This does not mean the
Sound is no longer at risk. The Sound passes through the densest population
corridor in the country, and will remain forever stressed by the 20 million
people who live within 50 miles of its shores. Thus the shoreline communities in
Long Island, Westchester and Connecticut must do more than ever to contain
pollution.
Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and human feeling.
1
of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed man is the most useless
2
on God"s earth. What we should
3
at producing is men who
4
both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start
5
, and their culture will lead them as
6
as philosophy and as high as
7
We have to remember that the valuable
8
development is self-development, and that it
9
takes place between the ages of sixteen and thirty. As to training, the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve.
In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must
10
of what I will call "inert ideas"—— that is to say, ideas that are merely
11
into the mind without being
12
, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.
In the history of education, the most
13
phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a craze for genius, in a
14
generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is that they are overlade with inert ideas. Except at
15
intervals of intellectual motivation, education in the past has been radically
16
with inert ideas. That is the reason why
17
clever women, who have seen much of the world, are in middle life so much the most cultured part of the community. They have been saved from this horrible
18
of inert ideas. Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity
19
greatness has been a
20
protest against inert ideas.
Globally, recovery is going slightly better than expected, according to the IMF, which released its latest World Economic Outlook today. After shrinking by 0.6% last year, the global economy is likely to expand by 4.2% in 2010, 0.3% faster than the IMF projected in January. But economic performances will continue to vary widely around the world. Much of the upward revision to global growth can be attributed to a better outlook for the American economy. The IMF revised its forecast for American economic expansion in 2010 up 0.4%, to 3.1%. There was no change, by contrast, for the euro area, which already faced a poorer growth outlook. The Euro area economy may only grow by 1% in 2010 and 1.5% in 2011. And much of the job of expansion will be handled by Germany and France, while southern European growth continues to lag. Spain's economy will continue to shrink in 2010. But the outlook is brightening for many emerging economies, including those in central and eastern Europe, for which growth forecasts were revised up by 0.8%. Developing Asia is enjoying a strong recovery, and the IMF indicated that both India and Brazil are likely to perform much better this year than initially anticipated, notching (赢得) growth rates of 8.8% and 5.5%, respectively. The report suggested that planned stimulus measures for 2010 should be fully implemented, given the fragility of recovery, but it also noted that sovereign debt worries will become more severe as the year progresses. Debt issues are likely to prove especially problematic in Europe, which has the highest debt ratios and the slowest expected growth rates. The stressed southern European nations are in a damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don't position. If little action is taken on debt, rising debt costs will choke of an already weak recovery. If aggressive action is taken, the blow to aggregate demand will likewise undermine growth. Around the world, trade and production have recovered strongly, but employment remains well below prerecession levels in most countries. Labour market weakness is helping to keep inflation expectations in check; the IMF forecasts consumer price increases in developed nations of 1.5% in 2010 and 1.4% in 2011. But the return to strong growth is boosting commodity prices once more. Oil prices may increase by 30% in 2010, said the IMF, a rise 7% larger than projected in January. The overall picture is of a remarkable turnaround in global fortunes, given the depth of the recession. The year's performance is much better than many would have dared to hope early last year. But in parts of Europe, the future is somewhat less certain, and because that uncertain future could lead to sovereign debt crises that could potentially rattle financial markets, world leaders should remain vigilant.
My Space and other Web sites have unleashed a potent new phenomenon of social networking in cyberspace,
1
at the same time, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that traditional social
2
play a surprisingly powerful and under-recognized role in influencing how people behave.
The latest research comes from Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. James H. Fowler, at the University of California at San Diego. The
3
reported last summer that obesity appeared to
4
from one person to another
5
social networks, almost like a virus or a fad. In a follow-up to that provocative research, the team has produced
6
findings about another major health
7
: smoking. In a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the team found that a person"s decision to
8
the habit is strongly affected by
9
other people in their social network quit—even people they do not know. And, surprisingly, entire networks of smokers appear to quit virtually
10
For
11
of their studies, they
12
of detailed records kept between 1971 and 2003 about 5,124 people who participated in the landmark Framingham Heart Study. Because many of the subjects had ties to the Boston suburb of Framingham, Mass. , many of the participants were
13
somehow—through spouses, neighbors, friends, co-workers—enabling the researchers to study a network that
14
12,067 people.
Taken together, these studies are
15
a growing recognition that many behaviors are
16
by social networks in
17
that have not been fully understood. And
18
may be possible, the researchers say, to harness the power of these networks for many
19
, such as encouraging safe sex, getting more people to exercise or even
20
crime.
In a perfectly free and open market economy, the type of employer -- government or private -- should have little or no impact on the earnings differentials between women and men. However, if there is discrimination against one sex, it is unlikely that the degree of discrimination by government and private employers will be the same. Differences in the degree of discrimination would result in earnings differentials associated with the type of employer. Given the nature of government and private employers, it seems most likely that discrimination by private employers would be greater. Thus, one would expect that, if women are being discriminated against, government employment would have a positive effect on women's earnings as compared with their earnings from private employment. The results of a study by Fuchs support this assumption. Fuchs's results suggest that the earnings of women in an industry composed entirely of government employees would be 14. 6 percent greater than the earnings of women in an industry composed exclusively of private employees, other things being equal. In addition, both Fuchs and Sanborn have suggested that the effect of discrimination by consumers on the earnings of self-employed women may be greater than the effect of either government or private employer discrimination on the earnings of women employees. To test this hypothesis, Brown selected a large sample of White male and female workers from the 1970 Census and divided them into three categories: private employees, government employees, and self-employed. (Black workers were excluded from the sample to avoid picking up earnings differentials that were the result of racial disparities. ) Brown's research design controlled for education, labor-force participation, mobility, motivation, and age in order to eliminate these factors as explanations of the study's results. Brown's results suggest that men and women are not treated the same by employers and consumers. For men, self-employment is the highest earnings category, with private employment next and government lowest. For women, this order is reversed. One can infer from Brown's results that consumers discriminate against self-employed women. In addition, self-employed women may have more difficulty than men in getting good employees and may encounter discrimination from suppliers and from financial institutions. Brown's results are clearly consistent with Fuchs's argument that discrimination by consumers has a greater impact on the earnings of women than does discrimination by either government or private employers. Also, the fact that women do better working for government than for private employers implies that private employers are discriminating against women. The results do not prove that government does not discriminate against women. They do, however, demonstrate that if government is discriminating against women, its discrimination is not having as much effect on women's earnings as is discrimination in the private sector.
A curious phenomenon occurs during every economic crisis—the rich
whine
that they are the ones who are suffering most. In current context, the wealthy even demands more tax cuts and more cuts in spending for programs aiding the poor, as every Republican presidential candidate promises.
I first noticed this
woe
-is-me attitude among the rich in 1974 when Alan Greenspan had just been named chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
One of his first tasks was to address a conference with emphasis on cutting programs to aid the poor, which brought
demonstrators to the event.
In an effort to show that everyone was suffering from inflation, Mr. Greenspan said, "If you really wanted to examine percentage-wise who was hurt the most on their income, it was Wall Street brokers. "
The urge to find ways to pity the well-off is still alive and well. Last week,
Bloomberg
News
reported that declining
bonuses
are creating severe hardship for many in the top 1 percent of income
distribution
. One of them, Andrew Schiff, complained that his $ 350, 000 salary barely covers his expenses. Others lamented that they could no longer go to Aspen to ski and must buy discount salmon.
I have to admit that everyone"s suffering is subjective.
But there does seem to be a widespread view that the poor don"t suffer as much from economic downturns because they are used to being at the bottom
. As Bob Dylan put it, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. "
Those with expectations of staying on top, who have grown used to living the good life, no doubt do suffer meaningfully when those expectations are shattered and they must learn to get by on incomes only five or 10 times the poverty-level income rather than 20 or 30 times
.
Admittedly, there doesn"t yet seem to be much downside for Republican candidates
pandering to
the rich. For one thing, they all have billionaires and other ultra rich people funding super political action committees for them. But one of these days, the Republican nominee will be chosen and will have to compete in the general election against President Obama. And it is unlikely that the Republican nominee can win with only conservative Republican votes; he will have to reach out to those who don"t necessarily believe that cutting taxes for the rich is the one and only policy that will stimulate growth.
As a Januarypoll from the Pew Research Center shows, two-thirds of Americans see strong conflict between the rich and the poor, up from 47 percent in 2009. And a number of polls show that Americans support higher tax rates on millionaires by a ratio of 2-to-1 or more. I think the Republican nominee is going to have a hard time responding if all he has to say is the rich need more tax cuts to compensate them for all their suffering during the economic crisis.
In the United States, the first day-nursery was opened in 1854. Nurseries were established in various areas during the
1
half of the 19th century; most of
2
were charitable. Both in Europe and in the U. S. , the day nursery movement received great
3
during the First World War, when
4
of manpower caused the industrial employment unprecedented numbers of women. In some European countries nurseries were established
5
in munitions plants, under direct government sponsorship.
6
the number of nurseries in the U. S. also rose
7
, this rise was accomplished without government aid of any kind. During the years following the First World War,
8
, Federal, State, and local governments gradually began to exercise a measure of control
9
the day-nurseries, chiefly by
10
them and by inspecting and regulating the conditions within the nurseries.
The
11
of the Second World War was quickly followed by an increase in the number of day-nurseries in almost all countries, as women were
12
called upon to replace men in the factories. On this
13
the U.S. government immediately came to the support of the nursery schools,
14
$ 6,000,000 in July, 1942, for a nursery school program for the children of working mothers. Many States and local communities
15
this Federal aid. By the end of the war, in August, 1945, more than 100,000 children were being cared
16
in day-care centers receiving Federal
17
. Soon afterward, the Federal government
18
cut down its expenditures for this purpose and later
19
them, causing a sharp drop in the number of nursery schools in operation. However, the expectation that most employed mothers would leave their
20
at the end of the war was only partly fulfilled.
Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best
word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on ANSWER SHEET
1.
Young girls at high risk for depression appear to
have a malfunctioning reward system in their brains, a new study suggests. The
finding comes from research that {{U}}(1) {{/U}} a high-risk group of 13
girls, aged 10 to 14, who were not depressed but had mothers who {{U}}(2)
{{/U}} recurrent depression and a low-risk group of 13 girls with no
{{U}}(3) {{/U}} or family history of depression. Both groups were given
MRI brain {{U}}(4) {{/U}} while completing a task that could
{{U}}(5) {{/U}} either reward or punishment.
{{U}}(6) {{/U}} with girls in the low-risk group, those in the high-risk
group had {{U}}(7) {{/U}} neural responses during both anticipation and
receipt of the reward. {{U}}(8) {{/U}} , the high-risk girls showed no
{{U}}(9) {{/U}} in an area of the brain called the dorsal anterior
cingulated cortex (背侧前扣带皮质), believed to play a role in {{U}}(10) {{/U}}
past experiences to assist learning. The high-risk girls
did have greater activation of this brain area {{U}}(11) {{/U}}
receiving punishment, compared with the other girls. The researchers said that
this suggests that high-risk girls have easier time {{U}}(12) {{/U}}
information about loss and punishment than information about reward and
pleasure. "Considered together with reduced activation
in the striatal (纹状体的) areas commonly observed {{U}}(13) {{/U}} reward,
it seems that the reward-processing system is critically {{U}}(14)
{{/U}} in daughters who are at elevated risk for depression, {{U}}(15)
{{/U}} they have not yet experienced a depressive {{U}}(16) {{/U}},"
wrote Ian H. Gotlib, of Stanford University, and his colleagues. " {{U}}(17)
{{/U}}, longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether the anomalous
activations {{U}}(18) {{/U}} in this study during the processing of
{{U}}(19) {{/U}} and losses are associated with the {{U}}(20)
{{/U}} onset of depression," they concluded. The study was published in the
April of the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Stop worrying about recession. That is the message from America's R-word index. For each quarter, we (1) how many stones in the New York Times and the Washington Post include the word "recession". (2) bells were set (3) by the sharp jump in the "R-count" in the first quarter of this year. at a rate that in the past has (4) the start of a recession. In the second quarter. (5) . the number of articles (6) by more than one-third. A conspiracy theorist might suggest that newspaper editors, (7) about dwindling advertising revenues, have (8) the R-word. The Economist has found that (9) the past two decades, the R-word index has been good at (10) mining-points in the American economy. (11) GDP figures which appear (12) after a lag, the numbers are instantly available. But how does the index perform in Germany, (13) there have also been (14) fears of recession? Using our idea, Hypo Vereins bank has (15) an R-word index for Germany, counting the number of times the word recession (16) in Handelsblatt. Worryingly, Germany's R-count for the first quarter of 2001 showed the second-steepest (17) in the past two decades. But in the second quarter, the index dropped by one-third, (18) in America (19) the world economy has nothing to worry about, or journalists are more worded about a (20) than a mere recession. A D-word index?
In Don Juan Lord Byron wrote, "Sweet is revenge—especially to women." But a study released on Wednesday, supported by magnetic resonance imaging, suggests that men may be the more natural avengers. In the study, when male subjects witnessed people they perceived as had guys being stroke by a mild electrical shock, their M.R.I. scans lit up in primitive brain areas associated with reward. Their brains' empathy centers remained dull. Women watching the punishment, in contrast, showed no response in centers associated with pleasure. Even though they also said they did not like the bad guys, their empathy centers still quietly glowed. The study seems to show for the first time in physical terms what many people probably assume they already know: that women are generally more empathetic than men. and that men take great pleasure in seeing revenge exacted. Men "expressed more desire for revenge and seemed to feel satisfaction when unfair people were given what they perceived as deserved physical punishment," said Dr Tania Singer, the lead researcher, of the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience at University College London. But far from condemning the male impulse for retribution, Dr. Singer said it had an important social function: "This type of behavior has probably been crucial in the evolution of society as the majority of people in a group are motivated to punish those who cheat on the rest." The study is part of a growing body of research that is attempting to better understand behavior and emotions by observing simultaneous physiological changes in the brain, a technique now attainable through imaging. "Imaging is still in its early days but we are transitioning from a descriptive to a more mechanistic type of study," said Dr. Klaas Enno Stephan, a co-author of the paper. Dr. Singer's team was simply trying to see if the study subjects' degree of empathy correlated with how much they liked or disliked the person being punished. They had not set out to look into sex differences. To cultivate personal likes and dislikes in their 32 volunteers, they asked them to play a complex money strategy game, where both members of a pair would profit if both behaved cooperatively. The ranks of volunteers were infiltrated by actors told to play selfishly. Volunteers came quickly to "very much like" the partners who were cooperative, while disliking those who hided rewards, Dr. Stephan said. Effectively conditioned to like and dislike their game-playing partners, the 32 subjects were placed in scanners and asked to watch the various partners receive electrical shocks. On scans, both men and women seemed to feel the pain of partners they liked. But the real surprise came during scans when the subjects viewed the partners they disliked being shocked. "When women saw the shock, they still had an empathetic response, even though it was reduced." Dr. Stephan said. "The men had none at all." Furthermore, researchers. found that the brain's pleasure centers lit up in males when just punishment was meted out. The researchers cautioned that it was not clear if men and women are born with divergent responses to revenge or if their social experiences generate, the responses. Dr. Singer said larger studies were needed to see if differing responses would be seen in cases involving revenge that did not involve pain. Still, she added. "This investigation would seem to indicate there is a predominant role for men in maintaining justice and issuing punishment./
In a perfectly free and open market economy, the type of employer -- government or private -- should have little or no impact on the earnings differentials between women and men. However, if there is discrimination against one sex, it is unlikely that the degree of discrimination by government and private employers will be the same. Differences in the degree of discrimination would result in earnings differentials associated with the type of employer. Given the nature of government and private employers, it seems most likely that discrimination by private employers would be greater. Thus, one would expect that, if women are being discriminated against, government employment would have a positive effect on women"s earnings as compared with their earnings from private employment. The results of a study by Fuchs support this assumption. Fuchs"s results suggest that the earnings of women in an industry composed entirely of government employees would be 14. 6 percent greater than the earnings of women in an industry composed exclusively of private employees, other things being equal.
In addition, both Fuchs and Sanborn have suggested that the effect of discrimination by consumers on the earnings of self-employed women may be greater than the effect of either government or private employer discrimination on the earnings of women employees. To test this hypothesis, Brown selected a large sample of White male and female workers from the 1970 Census and divided them into three categories: private employees, government employees, and self-employed. (Black workers were excluded from the sample to avoid picking up earnings differentials that were the result of racial disparities. ) Brown"s research design controlled for education, labor-force participation, mobility, motivation, and age in order to eliminate these factors as explanations of the study"s results. Brown"s results suggest that men and women are not treated the same by employers and consumers. For men, self-employment is the highest earnings category, with private employment next and government lowest. For women, this order is reversed.
One can infer from Brown"s results that consumers discriminate against self-employed women. In addition, self-employed women may have more difficulty than men in getting good employees and may encounter discrimination from suppliers and from financial institutions.
Brown"s results are clearly consistent with Fuchs"s argument that discrimination by consumers has a greater impact on the earnings of women than does discrimination by either government or private employers. Also, the fact that women do better working for government than for private employers implies that private employers are discriminating against women. The results do not prove that government does not discriminate against women. They do, however, demonstrate that if government is discriminating against women, its discrimination is not having as much effect on women"s earnings as is discrimination in the private sector.
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the word "recession".{{U}} (2) {{/U}}bells were set{{U}} (3)
{{/U}}by the sharp jump in the "R-count" in the first quarter of this year.
at a rate that in the past has{{U}} (4) {{/U}}the start of a recession.
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(6) {{/U}}by more than one-third. A conspiracy theorist might suggest
that newspaper editors,{{U}} (7) {{/U}}about dwindling advertising
revenues, have{{U}} (8) {{/U}}the R-word. The Economist
has found that{{U}} (9) {{/U}}the past two decades, the R-word index has
been good at{{U}} (10) {{/U}}mining-points in the American economy.{{U}}
(11) {{/U}}GDP figures which appear{{U}} (12) {{/U}}after a
lag, the numbers are instantly available. But how does the index perform in
Germany,{{U}} (13) {{/U}}there have also been{{U}} (14)
{{/U}}fears of recession? Using our idea, Hypo Vereins bank has{{U}}
(15) {{/U}}an R-word index for Germany, counting the number of times
the word recession{{U}} (16) {{/U}}in Handelsblatt.
Worryingly, Germany's R-count for the first quarter of 2001 showed the
second-steepest{{U}} (17) {{/U}}in the past two decades. But in the
second quarter, the index dropped by one-third,{{U}} (18) {{/U}}in
America{{U}} (19) {{/U}}the world economy has nothing to worry about,
or journalists are more worded about a{{U}} (20) {{/U}}than a mere
recession. A D-word index?
The celebration of the New Year is the oldest one of all holidays. It was first
1
in
2
Babylon about 4,000 years ago. New Year"s Day is an
3
national holiday, and banks and offices will be closed. Many families have New year"s Day
4
.
Traditionally, it was thought that it could
5
the luck they would have
6
the coming year by
7
they did or ate on the first day of the year. For that reason, it has become common for
8
to celebrate the first few minutes of a
9
new year in the
10
with the family and friends. Parties often last into the middle of the night after the ringing of a new year. It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year"s Day would bring
11
good luck or bad luck to the rest of the year. It was particularly lucky if that visitor
12
to be a tall dark-haired man.
Traditional New Year"s
13
are also thought to bring luck. People in many parts of the US celebrate the New Year by
14
black-eyed peas and cabbage. Black-eyed peas have been considered good luck in many cultures. Cabbage leaves are considered a
15
of prosperity, being
16
of paper currency. Other traditions of the season include the making of New Year"s resolutions. That tradition also
17
back to the early Babylonians. Popular modern resolutions might include the
18
to lose weight or quit smoking.
The song, "Auld Lang Syne", is sung at the
19
of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year. "Auld Lang Syne" literally
20
"yearning for the old days."
{{B}}Text 2{{/B}}
Are burgers and fries a product of the
profound social changes of the past 50 years, or were they to a large extent
responsible for them? The author of this diatribe against multinational
restaurant brands opts for the latter explanation. "There is nothing inevitable
about the fast food nation that surrounds us," he concludes. "The triumph of
McDonald's and its imitators was by no means pre-ordained." But it happened
nevertheless and. in his view, it is to be blamed for many of the evils of modem
America and their global spread. The emergence of the corporate colossus,
followed inexorably by its deionization, is a familiar pattern in American
business history. The modem phenomenon of fast food originated
in California just before the Second World War. Its first manifestation was kerb
service, with meals delivered to motorists by handsome young carhops. Richard
and Maurice McDonald. who ran a drive-in burger bar in San Bernardino near Los
Angeles, became tired of having constantly to replace their carhops and wash up
crockery and dishes. In 1948 they decided to make customers serve themselves,
while restricting the menu to items that could be prepared by unskilled cooks
and eaten without plates, knives or forks. The McDonald brothers
were soon bought out by the entrepreneurial Ray Kroc, who franchised their name
and techniques so successfully that there is now scarcely a comer of the world
that is free from their trademark golden arches, invariably spawning a cluster
of rival chains selling hamburgers, pizzas, or fried chicken, handed out by
smiling teenagers willing to accept minimal pay. They are cheap, cheerful,
popular, and children love them. So just what is Mr. Schlosser's beef? Apart
from his nutritional reservations—too much fat, salt and sugar—he proves how. as
the chains expanded, they were able to dictate terms to the suppliers of
potatoes and ground beef, their staple ingredients. This caused an upheaval in
agribusiness, as a few large suppliers quickly forced less efficient producers
out of the market. The drive to keep down costs and increase the speed of
production led to the employment of cheap unskilled labor and. to the widespread
toleration of dangerous and unhygienic practices among growers and processors,
which regulatory bodies have failed to police. Mr. Schlosser,
who is a skillful and persuasive investigative reporter, sees all this as a
damaging corruption of the free market. He is especially angered by promotional
techniques aimed at impressionable children. A 1997 giveaway of Teenie Beanie
Babies increased the sale of McDonalds' Happy Meals from 10m a week to 10rn a
day. And a survey found that 96% of American schoolchildren could identify
Ronald McDonald, the chain's mascot. Only Santa Claus scored
higher.
