填空题Do mobile phones cause explosions at petrol stations? That question has just been exhaustively answered by Adam Burgess, a researcher at the University of Kent, in England. Oddly, however, Dr Burgess is not a physicist, but a sociologist. For the concern rests not on scientific evidence of any danger, but is instead the result of sociological factors: it is an urban myth, supported and propagated by official sources, but no less a myth for that. Dr Burgess presented his findings this week at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association. Mobile phones started to become widespread in the late 1980s, when the oil industry was in the middle of a concerted safety drive, Dr Burgess notes. This was, in large part. a response to the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988, when 167 people died in an explosion on an oil platform off the Scottish coast. (41)__________So nobody questioned the precautionary ban on the use of mobile phones at petrol stations. The worry was that an electrical spark might ignite explosive fumes. (42)__________But it was too late. The myth had taken hold. One problem, says Dr Burgess, is that the number of petrol-station fires increased in the late 1990s, just as mobile phones were proliferating. Richard Coates, BP's fire-safety adviser, investigated many of the 243 such fires that occurred around the world between 1993 and 2004. He concluded that most were indeed caused by sparks igniting petrol vapour, but the sparks themselves were the result of static electricity, not electrical equipment. Most drivers will have experienced a mild electric shock when climbing out of their vehicles. It is caused by friction between driver and seat, with the result that both end up electrically charged. When the driver touches the metal frame of the vehicle, the result is sometimes a spark. ( 43 )__________ (44)__________One e-mail contained fictitious examples of such explosions said to have happened in Indonesia and Australia. Another, supposedly sent out by Shell, found its way on to an internal website at Exxon, says Dr Burgess, where it was treated as authoritative by employees. Such memos generally explain static fires quite accurately, but mistakenly attribute them to mobile phones. Official denials, says Dr Burgess, simply inflame the suspicions of conspiracy theorists. (45)__________Warning signs abound in Britain, America, Canada and Australia. The city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, introduced a ban last year. And, earlier this month, a member of Connecticut's senate proposed making the use of mobile phones in petrol stations in that state punishable by a $ 250 fine.[A] The safety drive did not apply merely to offshore operations: employees at some British oil-company offices are now required to use handrails while walking up and down stairs, for example.[B] As a result, the company had to pay a huge amount of compensation to the families of the victims and law suits concerning those fires seemed to be endless.[C] A further complication was the rise of the internet, where hoax memos, many claiming to originate from oil companies, warned of the danger of using mobile phones in petrol stations.[D] This is particularly noticeable in Britain. The country that led the way in banning mobile phones at petrol stations is also the country that has taken the strongest line on the safety of mobile-phone use by children.[E] Despite the lack of evidence that mobile phones can cause explosions, bans remain in place around the world, though the rules vary widely.[F] By tile late 1990s, however, phone makers—having conducted their own research— realized that there was no danger of phones causing explosions since they could not generate the required sparks.[G] This seems to have become more common as plastic car interiors, synthetic garments and rubber-soled shoes have proliferated.

填空题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}} The following paragraphs are given in a wrong order. For Questions 41-45, you are required to reorganize these paragraphs into a coherent text by choosing from the list A-G to fill in each numbered box. The first and the last paragraphs have been placed for you in Boxes. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. [A] Yet thieves still reap a rich harvest. Inadequate protection of U. S. patents, trademarks and copyrights costs the U. S. economy $ 80 billion in sales lost to pirates and 250,000 jobs every year, according to Gary Hoffman, an intellectual property attorney at Dickstein, Shapiro he makes unauthorized copies of Kevin Costner's latest film, sells fake Cartier watches and steals the formula for Merck's newest pharmaceutical. That's where the money is. [F] One reason is that any countries offer only feeble protection to intellectual property. Realizing that such laxness will exclude them from much world trade as well as hobble native industries, nations everywhere are revising laws covering patents, copyrights and trade names. Malaysia, Egypt, China, turkey, Brazil and even the Soviet Union have all recently announced plans either to enact new laws or beef up existing safeguards. In an effort to win U. S. congressional support for a proposed free-trade pact, Mexico last month revealed plans to double the life of trademark licenses to 10 years and extend patent protection for the first time to such products as pharmaceuticals and food. [G] Companies are cracking down on pirates who steal designs, movies and computer programs. The battle is getting hotter--and more important. When Johnson & Johnson introduced a new fiber-glass casting tape for broken bones several years ago, executives at Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing flew into a rage. The tape, which sets fractures faster than plaster, was remarkably similar in design and function to a casting tape developed by 3M scientists. The St. Paul-based company quickly sued, charging J & J with violating four of its patents. Last month a federal court backed 3M and ordered J & J to pay $116 million in damages and interest-- the fourth largest patent-infringement judgment in history. Order:

填空题Smoking means inhalation and exhalation of the fumes of burning tobacco. Leaves of the tobacco plant are smoked in various ways. After a drying and curing process, they may be rolled into cigars or shredded for insertion into smoking pipes. Cigarettes, the most popular method of smoking, consist of finely shredded tobacco rolled in lightweight paper. About 50 million people in the United States currently smoke an estimated total of 570 billion cigarettes each year. But, is smoking a good habit? 1. Increased risk of cancer Some experts noticed that lung cancer, which was rare before the 20th century, had increased dramatically since about 1930, The American Cancer Society and other organizations initiated studies comparing deaths among smokers and nonsmokers over a period of several years. 2. More deaths from other diseases Smokers also run greater risk of dying from diseases apart from cancers. 3. Cigar and pipe smoke, as dangerous Cigar and pipe smoke contains the same toxic and carcinogenic compounds found in cigarette smoke. 4. The effect of environmental tobacco smoke Recent research has focused on the effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), that is, the effect of tobacco smoke on nonsmokers who must share the same environment with a smoker. 5. Addiction at an early age The smoking habit and addiction to nicotine usually begins at an early age. This has led to particular concern over smoking in teenagers and young adults. There is no need to kill innocent human beings. Restricting tobacco use may be the only answer to a healthy world. Tobacco is harmful not only to us, but to the people in surrounding areas. Tobacco use has been passed on from generation to generation. It is now time to put a ban on smoking. With the help of thousands of people, smoking can be controlled. Now it is the time to start a tobacco battle. Smoking needs to become extinct worldwide. A. A report by the National Cancer Institute concluded that the mortality rates from cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, pharynx, and esophagus are approximately equal in users of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes. Rates of coronary heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis are elevated for cigar and pipe smokers and are correlated to the amount of smoking and the degree of inhalation. B. In the United States, more than 70 percent of adults began smoking before the age of 18. From the early to mid-1990s the proportion of teenage smokers in the United States rose from one-quarter to one third, despite increasing warnings about the health hazards of smoking and widespread bans on smoking in public places. In 2001 surveys of students in grades 9 through 12 found that more than 38 percent of male students and nearly 30 percent of female students smoke. Although black teenagers have the lowest smoking rates of any racial group, cigarette smoking among black teens increased 80 percent in the late 1990s. C. It is estimated that cigarettes are responsible for about 431,000 deaths in the United States each year. Lung cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, and smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. The risks of dying from lung cancer are 23 times higher for male smokers and 13 times higher for female smokers than nonsmokers. Additionally, smokers are at increased risk for cancer of the larynx, oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas. D. Research has shown that mothers who smoke give birth more frequently to premature or underweight babies, probably because of a decrease in blood flow to the placenta. E. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that exposure to the environment that contains all the toxic agents exhaled by a smoker, causes 3,000 cancer deaths and an estimated 40,000 deaths from heart disease per year in nonsmokers. Secondhand smoke can aggravate asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and impaired blood circulation. F. Smoking causes a fivefold increase in the risk of dying from chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and a twofold increase in deaths from diseases of the heart and coronary arteries. Smoking also increases the risk of stroke by 50 percent—40 percent among men and 60 percent among women.

填空题Whatever else historians say about the Copenhagen talks on climate change, they may be remembered as a time when the world concluded that it must protect forests, and pay for them. In the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, forests were a big absentee: that was partly because the nations like Brazil were unwilling, at any price, to accept limits on their freedom to fell. All that is history. 1 Over the past two years, skillful campaigning by pro-forest groups has successfully disseminated the idea that trees cannot be ignored in any serious deliberation on the planet"s future. Most people at the summit accepted the case that is endlessly made by friends of the forest: cutting down trees contributes up to 20% of global greenhouse emissions, and avoiding this loss would be a quick, cheap way of limiting heat-trapping gases. 2 On December 16th six rich nations gave advocates of that view a boost when they pledged $ 3.5 billion as a down payment on a much larger effort to "slow, halt and eventually reverse" deforestation in poor countries. The benefactors—Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Britain and the United States—endorsed tree protection in terms that went beyond the immediate need to stem emissions. 3 Impressive as it was, the rich nations offer did not settle the questions that need resolving in any global forest deal. 4 The most ambitious proposals called for a 50% reduction in deforestation by 2020 and a complete halt by 2030. But forested nations were unwilling to accept those ideas until they saw what the rich world was offering. The other question was how so much money will be ladled out, how it will be raised and who would receive it: national governments, regional authorities or local people, including the indigenous. Any plan that did not give local people cause to keep their trees standing would surely fail. Tony La Vina, the chief negotiator on the UN initiative known as "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)" was optimistic, as of December 16th, that the issues left to settle were "manageable." The question of how much money to raise from government transfers, and how much from carbon trading, is not merely of concern to radical greens. Some Europeans fear that throwing forests into the carbon market will depress the price; but for America"s Congress, a healthy market in offsets may be the only thing that makes payment to protect forests palatable. Supporters of REDD say it offers performance-related finance for saving forests on a far larger scale than ever before. It aims to ensure rigorous verification. 5 These may come from inflated national baselines for deforestation, or allowances that permit some sorts of tree-felling to be ignored. Sceptics also claim that REDD ignores some causes of deforestation, like the demand for soy, beef, palm oil, and timber which tempts people to act illegally. A. The proposal"s critics insist that a superficially good deal could prove terrible because of loopholes in carbon accounting. B. As the UN talks went into their second week, trees looked like being one of the few matters on which governments could more or less see eye to eye. C. One was whether or not to include timetables and targets. D. Keeping trees standing would protect biodiversity and help development of the right sort, they said. E. In the longer term, Copenhagen"s decisions may do a lot more to make the forests lucrative in themselves. F. The fact that REDD has been broadened to include rewards for countries that have conserved their forests (as opposed to repentant sinners) is an encouraging sign. But that does not mean the problems are negligible. G. Unless forests are better protected, so their argument goes, dangerous levels of climate change look virtually inevitable.

填空题[A]Asascience,managemententailstheuseoforganizedknowledge.Manyofthethingsmanagersdoarearesultofinformationobtainedthroughformalresearchandstudy.Oneareainwhichagreatdealhasbeendoneisquantitativedecisionmakingor,asitisknowntoday,managementscience.Weknowthatbyusingcertainmathematicalformulaswecancontrolinventoryandprojectdemandmoreaccuratelythanbymerelyusingtrialanderror.[B]Managementistheprocessofgettingthingsdonethroughpeople.Weknowthatpartofthisprocessiscarriedoutwiththedevelopmentofanorganizationstructure.[C]Yetmanagementisalsoanart.Throughexperiencethemanagerdevelopsjudgmentandintuition,subjectivefactorsthatareusefulinevaluationsituations.Forexample,themanagermayhavetochoosebetweentwostrategies,AandB,Allresearchandstudymayindicatethatneitherofthetwoisanybetterthantheother.[D]Effectivemanagementisacombinationofartandscience.Neithershouldbeignored;neitheroughttobereliedonexclusively.Ingettingthingsdonethroughpeople,managementmustseektherightblendofartandscience.Attheupperlevelsofthehierarchytherewillbemoreemphasisontheformer;atthelowerlevelstherewillbemoreemphasisonthelatter.[E]Howdomanagerssucceedingettingthingsdonethroughpeople?Inordertoanswerthisquestionitisnecessarytobreakdownthemanager'sjobintoitsbasicdutiesorfunctions.Managemententailsplanning,organizing,directing,andcontrolling.Byperformingwebineachoftheseareasthemanagercangetthingsdonethroughpeople.[F]However,whatifthemanagerchoosesstrategyAonthebasisofintuitionandprovestoberight?Inthiscaseitisdifficulttosaypreciselywhythemanagerwasabletochoosesowell,buttheremustbesomespecialabilityheorshehas.Thissametypeofabilityisusefulinmanagingpeople.Effectivemanagersknowwhentoflattertheirsubordinatesandwhentobestern.Suchhumanbehaviorskillscannotbequantified;theycanonlybelearnedthroughexperienceandtraining.[G]However,thereismoretomanagementthanjustorganizingthepeopleandthework.Objectivesmustbeset,plansformulated,peopledirected,andoperationscontrolled.Inmakingthenecessarydecisions,managementmustrelyonalltheskillsatitscommand.Asaresult,managementisbothascienceandanart.

填空题[A]Hereisaguidelinetoevaluateyourcurrentposture.Stepinfrontofamirrorandobservethefollowing.Areyoushouldersparalleltothefloororaretheyinclinedtoanyside?Theyhavetobeparalleltothefloorandatthesamelevel.Isyourchinparalleltothefloor?Thechinhastobeparalleltothefloor.Areyourearsinlinewithyourshoulders?Thishelpstokeeptheheadintherightplace.Areyourkneesstraightorareyoulockingthemback?Thekneesshouldberelaxedandcentered,notforward,andnotlocked-onattheback.[B]Onceyoudeterminetheproblemwithyourposturethatiswhatyouneedtoworkon.Trytocorrectittogettherightposture,youcandoafewthingsyourselfandalsouseachiropractor.Itwilltakepractice.Youprobablyhavehadmanyyearsofbadposture;soitwilltaketimetomakethenewpositionsahabit.Practiceandpracticeeverytimeyourememberandholdtherightpositionaslongasyoucan.[C]Ifwedonothavegoodposture,weputmoreweightinsomejointsandmusclesthanothersandthismusespain.Badpostureaffectsyourhealth,generalwellbeing,andyourappearance.Ifyoudonothaveperfectpostureyoucanimproveit.Itrequirespractice,butitisworthit.[D]Isyourheadrelaxed,centered,andheldback(earsovershoulders)?Ifyourheadisforward,backwardortiltedtoanysideitisbadposture.Doyouhaveanarconyourchest?Thechesthastobeerect,centerandaslightlyuplifted.Areyouarchingyourbackforwardorback?Thereisanarchinthebackbutisrelativelymoderate.Ifyourslookbigger,youneedtocorrectyourposture.Areyourhipsatthesameleveloroneishigherthantheother?Theyhavetobeatthesamelevel.Areyouranklesstraight?Theyhavetobe.[E]Thebestthingtodowhenyouexperiencelowerbackpainorotherpainwhencorrectingyourpostureistogotoadoctororachiropractortoeliminatethepossibilityofanyotherhealthproblems.However,ifyoucannotgo,youmaytrytostrengthenyouabdominalmuscles.Thesemusclesaretheonesthathelpustokeepstraightandup.Youcanstrengthenthesemuscleswithabdominalexercises.Thesameexercisesyoudototightenyourtummy:crunches.[F]Yogaandballetexercisesareprobablythebestwaytoimproveyourposturebecausetheyworkthemusclesthatsufferthemostfrompoorposture.Swimmingisalsoagreatoption.[G]Thinkaboutonephysicalattributethatallmodelsandmostcelebritieshaveincommon.Youneverhaveseenanybodyontheredcarpetwalkingwithaslouchedback.Thesepeopleknowhowtowalk:theyhavegoodposture.Thisarticlediscusseshowtohaveagoodposture.Manyofusspendlonghoursatourdeskandforgetaboutgoodposture.Coodpostureisimportantnotonlyforappearance,butalsoforhealthreasons.Order:

填空题 Will humans always be superior to machines? This statement actually consists of a series of three related claims: (1) machines are tools of human minds; (2) human minds will always be superior to machines; and (3) it is because machines are human 'tools that human minds will always be superior to machines. While I concede the first claim, whether I agree with the other two claims depends partly on how one defines "superiority," and partly on how willing one is to humble oneself to the unknown future scenarios. (41) After all, would any machine even exist unless a human being invented it? Of course not. Moreover, I would be hard-pressed to think of any machine that cannot be described as a tool. Even machines designed to entertain or amuse us—for example, toy robots, cars and video games, and novelty items—are in fact tools, which their inventors and promoters use for engaging in commerce and the business of entertainment and amusement. (42) And, the claim that a machine can be an end in itself, without purpose or utilitarian function for humans whatsoever, is dubious at best, since I cannot conjure up even a single example of any such machine. (43) As for the statement's second claim, in certain respects machines are superior. We have devised machines that perform number-crunching and other rote cerebral tasks with greater accuracy and speed than human minds ever could. However, if one defines superiority not in terms of competence in performing rote tasks but rather in other ways, human minds are superior. Machines have no capacity for independent thought, for making judgments based on normative considerations, or for developing emotional responses to intellectual problems. (44)Up until now, the notion of human-made machines that develop the ability to think on their own, and to develop so-called "emotional intelligence," has been pure fiction. Besides, even in fiction we humans ultimately prevail over such machines—as in the cases of Frankenstein's monster and Hat, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet it seems presumptuous to assert with confidence that humans will always maintain their superior status over their machines. In other words, machines will soon exhibit the traits to which we humans attribute our own superiority. (45) And insofar as humans have the unique capacity for independent thought, subjective judgment, and emotional response, it also seems fair to claim superiority over our machines. Besides, should we ever become so clever a species as to devise machines that can truly think for themselves and look out for their own well-being, then query whether these machines of the future would be "machines" anymore.[A] Recent advances in biotechnology, particularly in the area of human genome research, suggest that within the twenty-first century we'll witness machines that can learn to think on their own, to repair and nurture themselves, to experience Visceral sensations, and so forth.[B] The statement is clearly accurate insofar as machines are tools of human minds.[C] In sum, because we devise machines in order that they may serve us, it is fair to characterize machines as "tools of human minds."[D] It's hardly surprising that human-made machine can do the most works that belong to human before.[E] In fact, it is because we can devise machines that are superior in these respects that we devise them--as our tools—to begin with.[F] When we develop any sort of machine we always have some sort of end in mind—a purpose for that machine.

填空题{{B}}Directions:{{/B}}You are going to read a text about the state of college students' mental health, followed by a list of examples. Choose the best example from the list A—F for each numbered subheading (41—45). There is one extra example which you do not need to use. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. The state of college students' mental health continues to decline. What's the solution? In the months before Massachusetts Institute of technology sophomore Elizabeth Shin died, she spoke with seven psychiatrists and one social worker. The psychiatrists diagnosed major depression; the therapist recommended hospitalization. Shin told a dean that she was cutting herself and let a professor know that she wanted to commit suicide. The housemaster of her dorm and two of her friends stayed up nights to watch her. But it wasn't enough. On April 10, 2000, Elizabeth Shin locked her dorm room door and set her clothes on fire. Four days later, she was dead. {{B}}41. Many colleges are running into thorny situation.{{/B}} Her parents, Kisuk and Cho Hyun Shin, filed suit against MIT, charging its employees with gross negligence and wrongful death. It's an extreme case, but it illustrates a problem facing many other schools, as more and more students line up at counseling centers requiring increasingly intensive therapy or medication—or both. {{B}}42. Students with substantial personality problems.{{/B}} The number of freshmen reporting less than average emotional health has been steadily rising since 1985, according to the newest data from an annual nationwide survey by the University of California-Los Angeles. {{B}}Reasons for the decline of college students' mental health{{/B}} College therapists cite several reasons for the apparent deterioration in student mental health. Not only has this generation grown up in the much-maligned era of the disintegrating American family, it is also more used to therapy and so more likely to seek help. As competition to get into college gets tougher, students burn out before they even get there. And kids with severe psychological problems, who in the past wouldn't even have made it to college, now take psychotropic drugs that help them succeed. {{B}}43. The soaring number of visitors to college psychiatrists.{{/B}} Colleges first created counseling centers for students who needed career and academic advice, says Robert Gallagher, author of the counseling center survey and former director of the University of Pittsburghs' services. As psychological counseling took over, the centers' other advising functions were packed off to other parts of the campus. {{B}}44. Inadequacies of college therapy services.{{/B}} The ballooning caseloads mean there isn't the time or the staff to offer long-term therapy to any but the most troubled. "You can't just load up with the first 100 students and see them regularly without having openings for new people," says Gallagher. Instead, colleges focus on getting students over immediate crises. {{B}}45. What's the solution?{{/B}} Some schools have tried filling the gap by getting more involved in students' lives. The University of South Carolina, the University of Nevada-Reno, and Texas A 30 percent reported at least one student suicide on their campus last year.[C] "If a student tells you she took five extra pills over the weekend," says Gertrude Carter, director of psychological services at Bennington College in Vermont, "it's hard to tell if that's a grab for attention or an actual threat."[D] New statistics show that many freshmen arrive on campus depressed and anxious and feel worse as the year progresses. At the same time, colleges must also negotiate the legal and emotional pitfalls of caring for their charges, not children but not yet fully adults.[E] In response to the task force report, MIT is putting together support teams of physicians, other health-care professionals, and experienced counselors to spend time in the dorms, socializing with the students and keeping an eye on them.[F] One Yale student suffering from anxiety during his sophomore year rarely saw the same counselor twice. "It felt like the person I was talking to wasn't really there," he says. After five sessions, he stopped going. "I wouldn't want to go there again," he says, "but what else is there?"

填空题[A] Various definitions and interpretations of happiness.[B] One episode of enjoying happiness.[C] Some misconceptions about happiness.[D] Where to seek happiness?[E] Happiness is equivalent to the ability to rejoice.[F] The complexity of how to define happiness. "Are you happy?" I asked my brother, Ian, one day. "Yes. Nod It depends what you mean," he said. "Then tell me," I said, "when was the last time you think you were happy?" "April 1967," he said. It served me right for putting a serious question to someone who has joked his way through life. But Ian's answer reminded me that when we think about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, a pinnacle of sheer delight--and those pinnacles seem to get rarer the older we get. 41．________________________. For a child, happiness has a magical quality. I remember making hide-outs in newly cut hay, playing cops and robbers in the woods, getting a speaking part in the school play. Of course, kids also experience lows, but their delight at such peaks of pleasure as winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved. In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love, popularity and whether that zit will clear up before prom night I can still feel the agony of not being invited to a party that almost everyone else was going to. But I also recall the ecstasy of being plucked from obscurity at another event to dance with a John Travolta look-alike. In adulthood the things that bring profound joy--birth, love, marriage--also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. Love may not last, sex isn't always good, loved ones die. For adults, happiness is complicated. 42．________________________. My dictionary defines happy as "lucky" or "fortunate," but I think a better definition of happiness is "the capacity for enjoyment." The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook the pleasure we get from loving and being loved, the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, even good health. I added up my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First there was sheer bliss when I shut the last lunchbox and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids came home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day. Later, peace descended again, and my husband and I enjoyed another pleasure-intimacy. Sometimes just the knowledge that he wants me can bring me joy. 43．________________________. You never know where happiness will turn up next. When I asked friends what makes them happy, some mentioned seemingly insignificant moments. "I hate shopping," one friend said. "But there's this clerk who always chats and really cheers me up." Another friend loves the telephone. "Every time it rings, I know someone is thinking about me." 44．________________________. I get a thrill from driving. One day I stopped to let a school bus turn onto a side road. The driver grinned and gave me a thumbs-up sign. We were two allies in a world of mad motorists. It made me smile. We all experience moments like these. Too few of us register then as happiness. 45．________________________. Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a blend of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I doubt that my great-grandmother, who raised 14 children and took in washing, had much of either. She did have a net-work of close friends and family, and maybe this is what fulfilled her. If she was happy with what she had, perhaps it was because she didn't expect life to be very different. We, on the other hand, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we "gotta have." We're so self-conscious about our "right" to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equate it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't neeessaiily happier. While happiness may be more complex for us, the solution is the same as ever. Happiness isn't about what happens to us--it's about how we perceive what happens to us. It's the knack of finding a positive for every negative, and viewing a setback as a challenge. It's not wishing for what we don't have, but enjoying what we do possess.

填空题Canada"s premiers (the leaders of provincial governments), if they have any breath left after complaining about Ottawa at their late July annual meeting, might spare a moment to do something, together, to reduce health-care costs. They"re all groaning about soaring health budgets, the fastest-growing component of which are pharmaceutical costs. 1 . What to do? Both the Romanow commission and the Kirby committee on health care—to say nothing of reports from other experts—recommended the creation of a national drug agency. Instead of each province having its own list of approved drugs, bureaucracy, procedures and limited bargaining power, all would pool resources, work with Ottawa, and create a national institution. 2 . But "national" doesn"t have to mean that "National" could mean interprovincial—provinces combining efforts to create one body. Either way, one benefit of a "national" organization would be to negotiate better prices, if possible, with drug manufacturers. Instead of having one province—or a series of hospitals within a province—negotiate a price for a given drug on the provincial list, the national agency would negotiate on behalf of all provinces. Rather than, say, Quebec, negotiating on behalf of seven million people, the national agency would negotiate on behalf of 31 million people. Basic economics suggests the greater the potential consumers, the higher the likelihood of a better price. 3 . A small step has been taken in the direction of a national agency with the creation of the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment, funded by Ottawa and the provinces. Under it, a Common Drug Review recommends to provincial lists which new drugs should be included. Predictably, and regrettably, Quebec refused to join. A few premiers are suspicious of any federal-provincial deal-making. They (particularly Quebec and Alberta) just want Ottawa to fork over additional billions with few, if any, strings attached. That"s one reason why the idea of a national list hasn"t gone anywhere, while drug costs keep rising fast. 4 . Premiers love to quote Mr. Romanow"s report selectively, especially the parts about more federal money. Perhaps they should read what he had to say about drugs: "A national drug agency would provide governments more influence on pharmaceutical companies in order to try to constrain the ever-increasing cost of drugs." 5 . So when the premiers gather in Niagara Falls to assemble their usual complaint list, they should also get cracking about something in their jurisdiction that would help their budgets and patients. A. Quebec"s resistance to a national agency is provincialist ideology. One of the first advocates for a national list was a researcher at Laval University. Quebec"s Drug Insurance Fund has seen its costs skyrocket with annual increases from 14.3 percent to 26.8 percent! B. Or they could read Mr. Kirby"s report: "the substantial buying power of such an agency would strengthen the public prescription-drug insurance plans to negotiate the lowest possible purchase prices from drug companies." C. What does "national" mean? Roy Romanow and Senator Michael Kirby recommended a federal-provincial body much like the recently created National Health Council. D. The problem is simple and stark: health-care costs have been, are, and will continue to increase faster than government revenues. E. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, prescription drug costs have risen since 1997 at twice the rate of overall health-care spending. Part of the increase comes from drugs being used to replace other kinds of treatments. Part of it arises from new drugs costing more than older kinds. Part of it is higher prices. F. So, if the provinces want to run the health-care show, they should prove they can run it, starting with an interprovincial health list that would end duplication, save administrative costs, prevent one province from being played off against another, and bargain for better drug prices. G. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies will scream. They like divided buyers; they can lobby better that way. They can use the threat of removing jobs from one province to another. They can hope that, if one province includes a drug on its list, the pressure will cause others to include it on theirs. They wouldn"t like a national agency, but self-interest would lead them to deal with it.

填空题[A] What have they found? [B] Is it true that laughing can make us healthier? [C] So why do people laugh so much? [D] What makes you laugh? [E] How did you come to research it? [F] So what"s it for? Why are you interested in laughter? It"s a universal phenomenon, and one of the most common things we do. We laugh many times a day, for many different reasons, but rarely think about it, and seldom consciously control it. We know so little about the different kinds and functions of laughter, and my interest really starts there. Why do we do it? What can laughter teach us about our positive emotions and social behaviour? There"s so much we don"t know about how the brain contributes to emotion and I think we can get at understanding this by studying laughter. 41. Only 10 or 20 per cent of laughing is a response to humour. Most of the time it"s a message we send to other people—communicating joyful disposition, a willingness to bond and so on. It occupies a special place in social interaction and is a fascinating feature of our biology, with motor, emotional and cognitive components. Scientists study all kinds of emotions and behaviour, but few focus on this most basic ingredient. Laughter gives us a clue that we have powerful systems in our brain which respond to pleasure, happiness and joy. It"s also involved in events such as release of fear. 42. My professional focus has always been on emotional behaviour. I spent many years investigating the neural basis of fear in rats, and came to laughter via that route. When I was working with rats, I noticed that when they were alone, in an exposed environment, they were scared and quite uncomfortable. Back in a cage with others, they seemed much happier. It looked as if they played with one another—real rough-and-tumble—and I wondered whether they were also laughing. The neurobiologist Jaak Panksepp had shown that juvenile rats make short vocalisations, pitched too high for humans to hear, during rough-and- tumble play. He thinks these are similar to laughter. This made me wonder about the roots of laughter. 43. Everything humans do has a function, and laughing is no exception. Its function is surely communication. We need to build social structures in order to live well in our society and evolution has selected laughter as a useful device for promoting social communication. In other words, it must have a survival advantage for the species. 44. The brain scans are usually done while people are responding to humorous material. You see brainwave activity spread from the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe, the bit at the back of the brain that processes Visual signals, to the brain"s frontal lobe. It seems that the frontal lobe is involved in recognising things as funny. The left side of the frontal lobe analyses the words and structure of jokes while the right side does the intellectual analyses required to "get" jokes. Finally, activity spreads to the motor areas of the brain controlling the physical task of laughing. We also know about these complex pathways involved in laughter from neurological illness and injury. Sometimes after brain damage, tumours, stroke or brain disorders such as Parkinson"s disease, people get "stonefaced syndrome" and can"t laugh. 45. I laugh a lot when I watch amateur videos of children, because they"re so natural. I"m sure they"re not forcing anything funny to happen. I don"t particularly laugh hard at jokes, but rather at situations. I also love old comedy movies such as Laurel and Hardy and an extremely ticklish. After starting to study laughter in depth, I began to laugh and smile more in social situations, those involving either closeness or hostility. Laughter really creates a bridge between people, disarms them, and facilitates amicable behaviour.