{{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.

Stop worrying about recession. That is the message from America's R-word index. For each quarter, we{{U}} (1) {{/U}}how many stones in the New York Times and the Washington Post include 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. In the second quarter.{{U}} (5) {{/U}}. the number of articles{{U}} (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.

It has been justly said that while "we speak with our vocal organs we 1 with our whole bodies. " All of us communicate with one another 2 , as well as with words. Sometimes we know what we"re doing, as with the use of gestures such as the thumbs-up sign to indicate that we 3 . But most of the time we"re not aware that we"re doing it. We gesture with eyebrows or a hand, meet someone else"s eyes and 4 . These actions we 5 are random and incidental. But researchers 6 that there is a system of them almost as consistent and comprehensible as language, and they conclude that there is a whole 7 of body language, 8 the way we move, the gestures we employ, the posture we adopt, the facial expression we 9 , the extent to which we touch and distance we stand 10 each other. Body language serves a variety of purposes. Firstly it can replace verbal communication, 11 with the use of gesture. Secondly it can modify verbal communication. Loudness and 12 of voice is an example here. Thirdly it regulates social interaction: turn taking is largely governed by non-verbal 13 . Fourthly it conveys our emotions and attitude. This is 14 important for successful cross-cultural communication. Every culture has its own body language, and children absorb its nuances 15 with spoken language. The way an Englishman crosses his legs is 16 like the way a male American does it. When we communicate with people from other cultures, the body language sometimes help make the communication easy and 17 , such as shaking hand is such a 18 gesture that people all over the world know that it is a signal for greeting. But sometimes the body language can cause certain misunderstanding 19 people of different cultures often have different forms of behavior for sending the same message or have different 20 towards the same body signals.